REVIEW: I, FRANKENSTEIN

Before I begin my review, a little background introduction to the character Frankenstein. The character is created by author Mary Shelley for a novel. On film, the character Frankenstein has been portrayed by the legendary Boris Karloff, Peter Boyle, and Robert DeNiro among others.

The latest film adaptation of Frankenstein is titled I, Frankenstein. The film is directed by Stuart Beattie who wrote Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, Collateral, and Australia among others. I, Frankenstein stars Aaron Eckhart in the title role, Bill Nighy, Yvonne Strahovski, Miranda Otto, Jai Courtney, and Kevin Grevioux. The film is based on an original screenplay written by Grevioux and adapted by Beattie. The film is brought to you by the producers to the Underworld film franchise.

Will this film to justice to the movie monster genre? Do read on..

Aaron Eckhart as the 200 year old monster Frankenstein

SYNOPSIS:

Adam Frankenstein is a 200 year-old soulless monster created by mad scientist Dr. Victor Frankenstein. Walking the Earth in the present time, Adam is pursued by the demons from hell who want to harness the technology of his invention. Fortunately, Adam has allies in the form of the gargoyles. Soon after, he is thrust into a battle between the gargoyles and the demons.

SCRIPT:

Scattered and weak. Though I applaud its originality a little, I find the plots mildly fascinating. It  doesn’t hold any attention and there were too many loopholes. The lines were cheesy and it didn’t work with the seriousness that the story tried to portray. The romance story of the two leads were strongly under-developed.

Aaron Eckhart and lead actress Yvonne Strahovski sharing a scene

ACTING:

Poor and impassionate. Not even established actor like Aaron Eckhart could have saved this film. The only exception is Bill Nighy who always excels when given a villainous role. Other than that, the whole cast performances were quite bad.

FILMING:

Glorified crap is a nice way to put it. Despite its spectacular stunts and immense amount of visual effects, it still amounted to a boring film. Some sequences were nice and some sets were nice but it didn’t excite me at all. The visual effects is not B-grade type of work but pretty high quality. I understand that the look of the film is meant to be dark but it still did not excite me.

The talented Bill Nighy as the main villain

PACING:

Too short and felt slow. Signs of a bad film to come.

TONE (MOOD):

A dark revenge story involving two mythical factions of the spiritual underworld.

Jai Courtney as a gargoyle ally

DOWNSIDE:

Everything is wrong with the movie except (read below)

UPSIDE:

(Read above) Bill Nighy’s great performance of the villain.

Aaron Eckhart as Frankenstein ready to do battle with some demons

OVERALL:

Skip it. Watch another movie.

RATING:

3 out of 10.