Review of Victor Frankenstein (2015) by Steven B — 28 Nov 2015

Anybody who has read Mary Shelley's landmark horror novel "Frankenstein: or, The Modern Prometheus," published in 1818, knows Hollywood has taken liberties with it. Basically, Shelley's saga has spawned more than 70 movies. Most of them would make the Gothic author spin in her grave. Among the movies, "Hamlet" director Kenneth Branagh's "Mary Shelley's Frankenstein" (1994), with Robert De Niro, qualifies as the best, displaying greater fidelity to the novel than any other adaptation. The latest rendering of Shelley's work, "Push" director Paul McGuigan's "Victor Frankenstein" (*** OUT OF ****) follows dutifully in the footsteps of the Universal Pictures' classic with Boris Karloff as the monster. Nevertheless, "American Ultra" scenarist Max Landis provides some provocative changes. McGuigan and Landis pay tribute not only to the influential 1931 James Whale film with Karloff, but also Mel Brooks' farcical "Young Frankenstein" (1974), co-starring Gene Wilder and Peter Boyle. A triumph of production design in its recreation of Victorian Era London, "Victor Frankenstein" emerges as a energetic effort to launch a new franchise. Mind you, this isn't one of those horror movies where everything ends in fire and ashes. Instead, the mad scientist learns from his blunders, while everybody else--aside from the humongous monster-- gets away. No, the PG-13 rated "Victor Frankenstein" won't afflict you with nightmares. Certainly it contains its share of gripping, white-knuckled moments, but it concerns itself more with exciting rather than frightening audiences. Mind you, none of this will matter because "Victor Frankenstein" won't generate adequate box office to justify a sequel. British secret agents, old-school boxing champs, dames with arrows, animated dinosaurs, and heroes from a distant galaxy will divert virtually everybody from watching this rambunctious melodrama that deserves a fair better fate.

The first thing McGuigan and Landis alter in the "Frankenstein" formula is the character of Igor. This revisionist tale unfolds from the viewpoint of the hero's faithful laboratory assistant. "Harry Potter" superstar Daniel Radcliffe plays an anonymous, subjugated, hunchbacked circus clown. Everybody in Lord Barnaby's Circus mistreats this innocent clown. Despite the circumstances of his miserable existence, he serves as the circus medic. Improbably enough, he indulges himself in the study of anatomy in his spare time, and his anatomical illustrations rival those in the seminal "Gray's Anatomy" textbook. Lorelei (Jessica Brown Findlay, Lady Sybil on "Downton Abbey"), a picturesque trapeze performer far above Igor's social station, is the only person who doesn't treat him like excrement. During one performance, she plunges while performing an aerial stunt, and the deformed clown saves her life. When this accident occurs, a medical student, Victor Frankenstein (James McAvoy of "X-Men First Class"), rushes to Lorelei's side, too. Victor is impressed with the clown's resourcefulness and his capacity to improvise on the spot. So impressed is Frankenstein that he helps the clown escape from the circus after his cruel employer, Barnaby (Daniel Mays of "Byzantium"), has locked him up in an animal cage. The daring escape that the Victor and the clown make against Barnaby's fire-breathing and knife-slinging henchmen is staged with vigor by McGuigan like an Indiana Jones' cliffhanger. The surprise of surprises is the circus clown isn't actually a hunchback! Frankenstein perforates the clown's hump, drains it, and them corsets him into a girdle of sorts that straightens out his posture. Frankenstein then names him after his former roommate-Igor Strausman-who has long since vanished. Clearly, this Igor shares little in common with previous Igors. Frankenstein takes this Igor on as his partner, and they plan to reanimate a pilfered pile of body parts that constitute a chimpanzee. During a demonstration at the Royal College of Medicine, Frankenstein and Igor ignite the spark of life into a ghastly looking chimp. "If life is temporary," observes Frankenstein, "why can't death?" Sadly, everything goes awry with his maniacal monkey business, and Frankenstein has to kill the poor chimp after it goes on a rampage through the building. Later, Frankenstein's formidable father (Charles Dance of "Underworld 5") visits and informs his ungrateful son that the is about to expel him. Meantime, one of Victor's fellow medical students, Finnegan (Freddie Fox of "Pride") exhibits a keen interest in Victor's efforts to reanimate dead tissue with electricity.

"Victor Frankenstein" reminded me of those exuberant "Sherlock Holmes" epics pairing Robert Downey, Jr., with Jude Law. Director Paul McGuigan, who helmed four of the Benedict Cumberbatch & Martin Freeman BBC-TV episodes, keeps everybody on their respective toes, including a rather inconsequential but obnoxious Scotland Yard detective, Inspector Turpin (Andrew Scott of "Spectre"), who stalks our dynamic duo after Frankenstein rescues Igor for the circus. During their escape, one of the circus henchmen killed another henchman by accident, and Turpin has devoted all his time to tracking down Frankenstein. Occasionally, Igor takes time out to romance the darling Lorelei. Naturally, she frets about the sinister shenanigans into which Victor has drawn him. At the same time, Frankenstein has no romantic love interest to turn his head. Daniel Radcliffe and James McAvoy are splendidly cast as fast friends, with Radcliffe as more sympathetic and McAvoy as more insane. The activities that they wind up engaging in to obtain body parts aren't depicted. Never do we see them either robbing graveyards for human remains or plundering animal body parts. Nevertheless, McAvoy's Victor Frankenstein is every bit as nimble as Peter Cushing's Victor Frankenstein in the lively Hammer Studios Frankenstein franchise. The drawback for most Frankenstein fanatics may be the late introduction of the monster. Not until the big finale do we catch a glimpse of the monster. Indeed, this monster is formitable, boasting two sets of lungs and two hearts, and he resembles the albino giants in Ridley Scott's "Prometheus" (2012). Alas, he doesn't last long, and he lacks the power of speech like the Robert De Niro monster in "Mary Shelley's Frankenstein" and he is not the intellectual giant that Aaron Eckhart was in "I, Frankenstein" (2014). Like the sequence where our protagonists fled from the circus, McGuigan orchestrates other sequences with gusto. The final scene in a castle in Scotland where the monster is brought to life beneath stormy skies fractured by jagging lightning bolts is sensational. "Victor Frankenstein" ranks as one of the better "Frankenstein" adaptations.