Review of Victor Frankenstein (2015) by Kim H — 15 Apr 2016

My book club read Frankenstein last year, and while it was interesting, it was also drawn out, and boring in some parts. Since this is a movie version of it, the pace is much faster, and they took a lot of liberties with the book. In fact there is very little of the book remaining. But I didn't find that to be a bad thing, since this was an interesting re-telling of the story.

The biggest difference is that in the book, Dr. Frankenstein does not have an assistant, especially not a humpback named Igor. Daniel Radcliffe's character does compliment the story, and allows us to see into Dr. F's mind, by him being the caring one, while Dr. F. can be the crazy one. In the book Dr. F. was both caring and crazy, but whereas you can read this description in the book, it would have been a lot harder to portray it in the movie.

Igor doesn't stay a hunchback very long though, and what Dr. F. does to help him, was the most disgusting part of the movie. Just thinking about it makes me want to gag a little. After Igor no longer has his hump, he starts to interact with society, and finds that he enjoys it. This pushes Dr. F. into more of a rage since he feels as if he made Igor the man he now is, and Igor is not helping him as much as he wants.

The only part of the movie that was similar to the book (at least that I can remember) is towards the end when Igor is climbing the giant mountain (although in the book, it was the Doctor). This was a pinnacle of tension in the book when the Dr. went to find the monster. In the movie, it was another pinnacle.

Although there is very little of the book in this movie, I still really enjoyed it. The action scenes were intense, and the gore was a good amount, and made sense with the plot. Not gore, just for the sake of gore. As long as the classic isn't one of your favorites, I would say give this movie a watch.