Review of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1994) by Steve F — 09 Oct 2011

Slightly better than 'Bram stokers Dracula' in the sense that its more sensible and realistic with less cheese haha De Niro is believeable as the monster and Brannagh is actually just right for 'Victor'. The rest of the cast much like Coppola's Dracula is pretty impressive and gives the film a real epic sense with the likes of Cleese, Holm, Carter, Quinn and Briers, the only difference is this film doesn't have any major let downs performance wise like Dracula does with Reeves and Ryder. Helena Bonham Carter is perfect in the film, she fits anything like this really, any dark period drama...she fits it haha.

The visuals are damn good with that cracking gothic feel of course, you get a really good sense of dirty, dusty creaking wooden floorboards set against age old science with lots of odd looking machines created by Frankenstein, rotten body parts and murky dark cemeteries, you can almost taste the sweat and dampness of it all hehe.

There isn't anything especially stunning here I must confess, its pretty bog standard despite having De Niro against type casting as the monster, by the numbers without anything to really make it a classic. Its better than Coppola's film casting wise that's for sure and makes abit more sense but there is nothing that really stands out. Hard choice if you put De Niro up against Oldman for best monster performance, I guess Oldman may take it but this film would win for everything else I reckon.

Not as visually stunning as Coppola's Dracula maybe but certainly more down to earth.