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Frankenstein Review

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It’s time for an even older film. Frankenstein is a monster who grew very popular and actually has a lot of fans. Just look at how many films this guy has. It’s quite unbelievable since I’m not a fan of the series by any stretch of the imagination and it’s hard to see how any movie of it could ever be good. I dunno, it just doesn’t have much potential. This one isn’t that bad for most of the film, but it is very boring. There is also one scene which destroys the film and it couldn’t recover from that.

By now, you know the story. Doctor Frankenstein decides to build a monster. Elizabeth, Victor, and a nice old Professor decide to visit Frankenstein to tell him to stop this foolishness. Surprise surprise, he decides to go ahead with the experiment anyway. Frankenstein’s monster is born and now he wants to destroy everyone all around the world. Welllllll, that may not be his total goal, but effectively it is what he is doing. Can the villagers tale this guy down before he harms anyone else?

The monster is supposed to be a sympathetic character typically because everyone treats him really badly and he can do nothing right. The problem here is that this is impossible to do. He murders a little girl and well….you can’t come back from that. The film couldn’t come back from it either. It was a really dark scene that had no place in the film. If she had swam out after he left or been rescued, then it would be fine. Drowning just like that? Nah, that scene was terrible.

Even beyond that, the monster’s just never been an interesting character. He basically invented the strong, but not very smart trope. Not that the other characters were much better. Frankenstein’s the one who caused this whole mishap in the first place. He shouldn’t have tried to build Frankenstein and create life. It was never going to work. The other Doctor doesn’t do much of anything and ends up being more of an observer than anything else. Victor talks tough and tries to stand on even ground with Frankenstein, but when he is told to sit down…he obeys. Elizabeth tries to reason with Frankenstein the whole time, but it is ultimately futile. She never really had an effect on him so there bond wasn’t really all that strong. He would have left them out in the rain if they hadn’t forced the issue by knocking over and over again.

One other issue with the film is that it’s just very boring. The scenes drag on and on and on despite the film being fairly short. By the second half, you’ll start to wonder just what happened. The first half isn’t all that bad. The characters go to the creepy tower. There are some debates. Frankenstein is revived. After that? The film just loses all direction as the monster goes around getting burned by old, blind people and attacks others for no real reason. It’s supposed to be humorous to see Frankenstein get burned and I suppose it was handled better than some of the other plots, but it still wasn’t all that good.

There’s not much more to say about this film because it is the same old Frankenstein story that you have seen a million times. It is the original though so I suppose it isn’t totally fair to call it old. One thing that could have helped the film a little bit would have been to have the monster talk. If he could actually exchange dialogue with the others, then it would at least make the film more interesting. After all, the writing during this time was solid enough where even Frankenstein would have sounded distinguished. It may have been a little tough to swallow, but it beats the alternative. It does make you wonder what would have happened if the proper brain had been given to the monster. I suppose the film would have been more of a slice of life at that point though so it may be moot.

If I have to name one positive thing about the film, it’s that it ages well. At least as far as the effects and cinematography go. It came out before the Wax Museum and yet it definitely looks newer and more polished. That may be more of a shot against the Wax Museum though. Hmmm…even my complements for Frankenstein turn into negatives. What can I say, the concept of Frankenstein is just terrible in my opinion and I don’t see how anyone could turn it into an engaging film without completely rewriting the plot. It just cannot be done I’m afraid. Even Dracula is more engaging as a film and as a character. Just conceptually, I’d rank the popular monsters from best to worst as: Dracula>>Mummy>>Werewolf>>Frankenstein. The Werewolf is close though as that plot isn’t very interesting either. There just isn’t much to it. A guy turning into a monster that looks like a human? Seriously…

Overall, Frankenstein is a more tasteful film than the last Frankenstein adventure that I saw, but not by much. Seriously, the little girl scene leaves a bad taste in your mouth and easily takes off 2-3 stars by itself. I don’t see any reason why you should want to watch this film either as it will just bore you out of your mind. By the end you aren’t even sure who to root for. The angry villagers, the Monster, Frankenstein…or nobody. Regardless, you’ll endure the climax, but I’m sure that the TV will be shut off almost immediately afterwards. If you want to see a good Frankenstein film, then I recommend I Frankenstein. To this day, it’s the only good Frankenstein film. I don’t count films where he just happens to appear as a few more would join the list then. I Frankenstein is a very loose adaption of the mythos, but that’s part of why it is good. Trust me, you can’t go wrong there.

Overall 1/10

Frankenstein vs Mewtwo

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mewtwo
Frankenstein's_monster_(Boris_Karloff)
This is a tribute to Frankenstein. Yes, he is technically Frankenstein’s monster, but I like to call him Frankenstein. He is a character who I have never found to be very likable. I suppose that the very concept of the villain isn’t too exciting for me. I could see Mewtwo easily winning this match with a quick dash coupled with a nice Dark Slash. That ought to be enough to claim victory. Mewtwo wins

The Curse of Frankenstein Review

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If you thought that the Dracula film was bad, just wait until you see this film! Hammer Film Productions definitely seems to be slipping when it comes to horror films. This is their weakest installment yet and I fear for whatever sequels may follow this one. Frankenstein’s never been a likable concept for me and this film won’t help that. Rather than scare you, this will simply leave you dissatisfied.

Frankenstein starts off the story in prison and tells a priest about how he got here. He was a scientist who was rich and he convinced his mentor to dabble in the ways of science together. It was all innocent and fun at first, but then Frankenstein decided that he wanted to be able to create life. To do this, he would have to rob many graves and even murder people so that he could get the parts that he needed. His partner backed off at this point, but nothing could stop Frankenstein until he finally created a monster!

Where to start with this one right? Well, the main big negative is the fact that it’s incredibly violent and gruesome. Seriously, we’re talking Daredevil levels of violence at some points as you see a lot of body parts as Frankenstein assembles them and it’s all very gruesome and gross. It may be old so the effects aren’t great, but it’s still rather bad and one character’s head is even cut off. We don’t see it as we only see from Frankenstein’s shoulders and up as he is cutting, but it’s still a really bad scene and just keeps on hurting a film that wouldn’t have been any good anyway.

As explained, Frankenstein is a really bad character. He’s essentially insane and a very cruel person. His partner is supposed to be the likable character, but he wasn’t. Rather than reporting the acts of murder and grave robbing, the partner just stays silent. He even leaves the house, but decides to come back and tempt fate for no real reason at that point. In the final battle, he decides to run off and grab some help instead of staying to fight the monster. You can see why he did it based on what happened in the first round, but it’s still a dicey situation since the heroine could have gotten injured.

The heroine’s portrayal isn’t too good as she is here thanks to an arranged marriage from when she was a child. She claims that this doesn’t matter and even though she has never seen Frankenstein before, she will love him. As the partner says, she’s mixing up gratitude for love. (As Frankenstein provided for her family since she was a child) She also acts like less of an equal to Frankenstein and more of an underling as she even allows the husband to have an area that is off limits to her. That’s something that would be absurd in a current movie and the partner kept hinting that Frankenstein was doing something hideous in there so she should have gone in sooner.

There’s also a rather unnecessary subplot where Frankenstein decides to cheat on his fiance/future wife with a maid for no real reason. Then he dumps her when he feels like it and she is naturally killed off by the monster. It’s just another scene to show us how cruel Frankenstein is, but we already got the memo on that so this scene was really just fluff. The ending is supposed to be the scene of comupence for Frankenstein as we see that justice has finally caught up, but it’s at the expense of making the partner look bad once again. Essentially, he just visited Frankenstein to rub the whole thing in his face and lie by omission to ensure that Frankenstein was doomed.

It’s a very grim ending to a grim film. Dracula and Frankenstein’s movies were both rather solemn, but at least Dracula was light hearted some of the time and The Mummy was fun most of the time. This film didn’t really have any good moments once Frankenstein became an adult. It’s too bad because the beginning had some slight potential, but then everything went downhill at breakneck speed.

As for the monster, he is made to look as ugly and broken as possible to hammer in the fact that he’s a monster. The problem is that they also make him look like a slave and you feel bad for the monster. It has no idea what its doing and it is forced to obey commands before it is shot more than once and things never go its way. It destroys anyone who comes close, but its effectively mindless so it’s like a wild animal attacking someone. The monster is not a likable character by any means, but the whole plot is just sad.

I’m really glad that this film wasn’t quite up to the feat of being 2 hours or longer. As it is, the film started to get tiresome very quickly and I’m not sure how much longer it could have kept plummeting down the well before critics would start giving it awards for being the worst film of the year. Another negative for me would be that the victims are very distasteful in this film. The monster goes after a blind, old man. Seriously? What’s the point of making the victim so helpless already. It just makes the scene even more distasteful. Another victim is an old man who is thrown off of a high floor and quickly dies. Frankenstein fools the guy’s colleagues of course and the only person who knows the truth decides not to stop him.

Overall, This is a film that you should skip at all costs. It’s definitely one of the worst films that I’ve seen and I’ve seen quite a few stinkers in my day. This one just makes almost every mistake that it can possibly bump into except for the animal violence and we did see a dead animal before it was brought back to life, which would mildly count as there is no real reason to having it there. The very plot/concept was doomed from the start and the excessive violence plus the distasteful deaths sank it even deeper into the pits of infinity and beyond. At least this reminds me why the classic monsters have nothing on the modern ones like the Teletubbies. What we need, is a reboot of the film with the tone of Avengers mixed in with the guest star power of Pixels. So long as it is created correctly, that is a film that could have some potential. Perhaps, a lot of potential! They would just need to change the concept a little, maybe make Frankenstein a robot or something and skip the whole grave robbing plot along with the rest of the plots. Until then, if you want to watch a good horror film, check out Scooby Doo Zombie Island!

Overall 0/10

I Frankenstein Review

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This time, I actually had heard of I Frankenstein before watching it. The trailer was easily one of the best ones that I saw this year and the only one that gave it any real competition was the trailer for the new Spiderman film. The trailer reminded me of the Underworld films and apparently it is from the same crew. I definitely had some decently high expectations for the film as I went in and I can safely say that it exceeded them. Considering that this film isn’t part of a big franchise or based on something that I’m familiar with, it did great. I Frankenstein is easily one of the best stand alone films that I’ve seen in a while. (Losing to The One as far as action films go, but it can even match up to DC and Marvel films)

The plot starts off with the usual Frankenstein story. Dr. Frankenstein tries to murder his creation, but he fails miserably, which results in his own death + his wife’s. When the monster goes to bury the doctor; he gets attacked by vampires demons. (I’m just going to call the monster Frankenstein from here on out to make things a little easier to read and type) Frankenstein is saved by some Gargoyles and they take him to their castle base. They are in a war with the demons and the humans have no idea about what has been going on. It’s a supernatural war and the demons are a part of the 666 legions that Satan sent to plunge the world into darkness. The gargoyles were ordered by the angels to hold the fort. (It was either Angel Michael or Gabriel who gave them this mission) The Gargoyles defend the peace and their leader is the only one who can directly communicate to the angels so they strive to protect her at all costs.

Frankenstein decides that he stands alone and he leaves. They supply him with a holy weapon and Frankenstein disappears for well over 100 years. The demons attack him again and Frankenstein decides that he’s going to fight back this time. No more running away…he’s going to end this war and take them all down. Will the Gargoyles approve? Frankenstein has a lot of battles ahead of him and he’s going to need to keep his guard up at all times.

Frankenstein is a pretty decent main character and this is my favorite interpretation of this figure. No longer is Frankenstein the slow monster that we’ve known him to be. No, he now possesses a mild degree of super strength/speed and he’s a solid fighter. He fights pretty well against the demon hordes. He may not be the most heroic character out there, but the film hints that he has softened up a little. (He better have since he starts the film off with a murder. It’s hard to forget that part) He deals a lot of damage to both sides through the film.

Prince Naberius is the main villain of the film. He’s the big boss and he is assumed to be much more powerful than the other demons. We don’t really see this because he takes a more diplomatic approach. He’s the kind of villain who appears to be gentle and nice in public, but he’s secretly as vicious as they come. He does get to mildly fight at the end of the film, but he doesn’t get any satisfying form of closure. As far as main villains go; he can be a little on the generic side and I was a little underwhelmed by his true form. That being said, it was amusing to see him in his human guise. It reminded me a little of Lex Luther in his actions. Naberius was definitely an all right character.

Terra is the main heroine of the film, but she doesn’t appear until we’re pretty late into the film. She’s all right, but I wouldn’t say that she stands out in any way. She’s experiments on animals and that’s something that I never like from scientists. That automatically meant that I would not like her in the film and she was never able to climb back from that. She helps out towards the climax and she’s supposed to be a sympathetic character that we can relate too, but she really didn’t have a purpose in the film. She could have been cut out and nobody would really notice.

Gideon is one of the highest ranking Gargoyles and he really doesn’t like Frankenstein. He’s so antagonistic that one would almost expect him to descend after he is defeated. He’s definitely no hero and he may be a decent fighter, but there isn’t much to suggest that he’s stronger than the others aside from the hype that he is given. I definitely didn’t care for him and I was rooting for him to lose in his fights.

Leonore is the Queen of the Gargoyles and she does not act as holy as you may expect. She doesn’t mind lying and using someone as long as it furthers her ambitions and she does give a kill order at one point in the film. (Again…this is why I’m glad that they decided to make the heroes work under the Angels as Gargoyles. I would be pretty incredulous to see Angels lie and decides to destroy people) She very unlikable, but then again…I didn’t care for any of the Gargoyles by the end of the film. The very first pair of Gargoyles that found Frankenstein were okay, but that’s about it. Leonore looks bad right up to the very end as she stabs a defenseless villain. At that point, they had to get rid of thousands of demons, but while her allies were taking them down by the dozens…she only defeated one. That’s not going to win her any fans.

Zuriel is the right hand man of Naberius and he was easily the best villain. He was a lot stronger than I had guessed and he proved to be more than a match for Frankenstein in a fair fight. Zuriel’s demon form was a little generic, but I can let that slide since he was fun to watch. He doesn’t get a whole lot of screentime, but each scene proves that aside from being a fighter; Zuriel is also a tactician. He proved to be smarter than Naberius when it came to planning.

Now, I have to address the gargoyles. They were supposedly sent here by the Angels so they should be pretty good people right? Unfortunately, that doesn’t really appear to be the case. I’m sure that some of them are heroic, but I just expect a lot more from them. They may not be complete Angels, but when I finally meet an Angel; I expect them to be nothing like the Gargoyles in the film. One of these holy Gargoyles happy tells Frankenstein that he’s doomed to rot in hell for all eternity and he’s really thrilled about this. (He’s also a little sore since he’s being terminated)

One plot in the film is how Frankenstein doesn’t have a soul. The gargoyles are mad at him and also worried because they say that he shouldn’t exist and now God is not the only one who has created life. They act as if Satan will destroy everything with this knowledge and that the world is doomed. First of all, I don’t see how Frankenstein would not have a soul. Even though he was created by another human; Frankenstein has emotions and he can feel pain. He’s completely alive and I would say that this means that he automatically has a soul. An interesting part is that he does something during the final part of the film that proves that he doesn’t have a soul, which contradicts what happens a few minutes after that. Do souls really grow that quickly? I don’t know…that part felt sketchy. He should have had a soul from the beginning.

One scene that I didn’t care for was the scene with the rat as they tried to perfect the regeneration process. Testing on animals will always be wrong. Many say that it’s for the greater good so that humans will be okay, but that’s not okay in my book. If we want to be healthier, then we need to test on ourselves instead of innocent creatures. That scene was pretty awful, but luckily it was only once and we didn’t have any other forms of animal violence.

Another part that I took issue with was how weak the Gargoyles base was. The demons were basically able to take it over at any time. When they finally decided to attack the Gargoyles; it was a blowout. The demons outnumbered them over 100-1 and the heroes quickly started saying things like “It’s Over.” Why couldn’t they call for backup from the other bases that were previously mentioned? They said that Satan only has command over 666 legions so the Gargoyles should definitely outnumber them at this point. It’s definitely a little on the iffy side to see such a gap in power.

The soundtrack is a little on the forgettable side, but it was pretty good. The tunes tend to be a little generic, but it’s generic action mood that fits the tone. It’s pretty fast paced at times and the dramatic themes were also well placed. You likely won’t remember the music in your head after a few days, but they will help to enhance the fight scenes as you’re watching the film.

The fight scenes were very good and this is the kind of action that I want to see in a film. There were sword fights and we also had some monster action, but it was all done smoothly. The blowing up effects for the demons were pretty neat and likewise with the ascending effect for the Gargoyles. The scenes were intense without being gritty in an over the top way.

Overall, this was a pretty fun film. We got to mix religion with an old myth like Frankenstein. I’m glad that the Angels were not the ones fighting because I would never want to see them look so much like the villains, plus the Gargoyles were so weak. I do not believe that a demon would be able to defeat an Angel. Frankenstein was a good lead and Zuriel made for a good villain, but the rest of the characters were either decent or just unlikable. The soundtrack and fight scenes made the film very enjoyable and it’s fast paced. There aren’t many scenes that will really feel dragged out, which is always a plus. I definitely recommend this film to action fans. There may be one or two violent moments, but nothing over the top. If you’ve seen Jason Bourne, then you’ll be okay to see this one.

Overall 7/10