Victor Frankenstein: Movie Review

Director Paul McGuigan (“Lucky Number Slevin”, “Push”) gives us his best film to date with “Victor Frankenstein”. This doesn’t mean that his latest effort is good, it just means that it’s the least crappy. I would say much of that has to do with the screenplay by Max Landis (“Chronicle”, “American Ultra”) and the casting of James McAvoy as the title character. The casting and some clever dialogue make at least the first thirty minutes or so mildly entertaining. Once we get though the first half hour, “Victor Frankenstein” becomes almost unbearable.

To its’ credit, “Victor Frankenstein” is unlike any other cinematic version of Mary Shelly’s 19th century novel. This time around, the story is told through the eyes of Igor (Daniel Radcliffe). As the story begins, Victor rescues the yet unnamed hunchback when he notices his brilliance and appoints him to be his assistant. Victor actually names his new friend, Igor (after his former roommate). It also turns out that Igor is not a real hunchback, which Victor points out in one of the film’s best scenes.

Together the men work on creating life out of death, by using animal limbs, organs and tons of electricity. Once they bring their first creature to life, that is where “Victor Frankenstein” begins to nose dive. I found the budding relationship between Victor and Igor to easily be the best thing about the film but as Victor became increasingly obsessed and goes down the path of madness, the story became much less interesting. Although Igor’s romance with Lorelei (Jessica Brown Findlay) was a nice addition, it just didn’t work in the middle of everything. The least interesting of all the characters had to be Inspector Turpin (Andew Scott) who was lifeless at the god-fearing law enforcer out to take down Frankenstein.

What surprises me most is nothing that has to do with the actual film, but the fact that the studio has decided to release this on Thanksgiving day. There is so much stiff competition at the box office this season and something like this would have been better suited for late January-early February. I can’t predict the future, but I am pretty confident that this won’t generate a large turnout this holiday weekend. Despite the lead performances…especially McAvoy who really is great, there isn’t much here worth recommending.

By: Marc Ferman