Review of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1994) by Stuart K — 16 Apr 2013

Directed by Kenneth Branagh and produced by Francis Ford Coppola and adapted by Frank Darabont, this was intented to be a serious adaptation of Mary Shelley's 1818 novel, in much the same way that Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992) was a serious adaptation.

Coppola had intended to direct this, but passed it onto Branagh, after admiring his Shakespeare adaptations. It's a good film, but it's not without it's faults, but some of it works. Victor Frankenstein (Branagh), grief stricken by the death of his mother, vows to find a way to enable everlasting life, and goes to study science at the University of Ingolstadt, there he becomes friends with Henry Clerval (Tom Hulce) who aids him with his experiments, while Frankenstein has a mentor in Professor Waldman (John Cleese), but Frankenstein carries on, creating the body of a man taken from various parts of cadavers.

Using electricity, his creature (Robert De Niro) comes to life, but runs off into the wild, but he soon learns how he came to be, and swears revenge against his creator for his appearance and how this happened.

It looks brilliant, with great sets and a powerful score by Patrick Doyle, but it does feel quite dull in places, and there is a lot of scenery chewing and hamming it up, and it's a world away from the Frankenstein's of Universal and Hammer, but at least they were fun.