Review of I, Frankenstein (2014) by Thomas T — 30 Jan 2016

I feel the need to defend this film from ridiculous criticism. Some have criticized this for being unoriginal, for being bland, for being emotionless. And I understand where that is coming from. This movie certainly is not everyone's cup of tea.

This film seems to be getting a lot of unfair criticism simply for sharing characteristics with action films. It seems to be a victim of genre fatigue. The same fatigue affecting Resident Evil, Underworld, and Jupiter Ascending.

As for Aaron Eckhart, sometimes it can be difficult to figure out if the emotionless nature of a character is the fault of the actor, director, or just the intended nature of the character. In I, Frankenstein, it seems to be intentional and I feel like this doesn't hurt the character considering his origins and typical portrayals. Nobody should have been expecting to see an emotional Frankenstein.

As for the movie out of context of it's criticism, I found the action to be entertaining, the characters slightly less compelling than they should have been, the villain to be typical, but still effective, the effects to be impressive, the tone to be fitting, the internal politics to be interesting, the mythology to be a little mediocre, and the streets of Paris to be inexplicably empty.