Mary Shelly's Frankenstein

This was my attempt to complete my Frankenstein through the ages thing that I had going. I watched the original, one from the 70's, and now the one from the 90's to cap everything off. I had never seen this movie, but had never heard great things about it. Again I can't say how closely it stayed true to the novel, because I don't remember the damn thing. I can say that out of the 3 Frankenstein movies I watched, this one is definitely at the bottom of the pile.

A better name for this movie would be "Mary Shelly's Kenneth Branaugh Ego Trip." Unfortunately she never wrote that book. However that's almost exactly what this movie is. I've seen a couple of Branaugh's Shakespere movies and it's almost the exact same thing. It's just "look at me! look at me!" His movies are also very over the top and over dramatic. This one is no exception, except because it's a Frankenstein movie it seems a lot more out of place then it does in say Hamlet. 

This at times feels like the high school play version of Frankenstein. The acting isn't bad, but I really don't even know how to describe it. Everyone is trying way too fucking hard. There are even soliloquys in this thing. A fucking lot of them. It all sort of came off as laughable to me. 

One thing I really liked about the movie was the monster itself. First off, it's played by Robert De Niro, which is just awesome. Second, he actually looks like he is a bunch of human pieces stitched together. Third, he's fucking badass. This is a completely new take on the monster and I was really into it. In this version he is a lot smarter and actually can talk and think and act like a real person, which makes sense since he essentially is one. Once he finds out how he was born, he goes nuts and vows to get revenge on Dr. Frankenstein for creating him.

I'm not sure if we're supposed to root for the monster or not, but I sure did. Anytime he kills one of those over dramatic human characters I was pumped because I knew that meant they would have to shut the fuck up from now on. If the whole movie had been the monster killing the cast, this would be an easy 9/10.

I wasn't fan of this version of Frankenstein. I don't like what was done with the material and I especially didn't like Kenneth Branaugh, or most of the cast really. I loved the monster though, and him alone made the movie worth watching. Too bad he didn't kill everyone within the first half hour though. Hell he doesn't even show up until almost the halfway point of the film. BOO!

5/10