When audiences bemoan Hollywood for its failure to produce original and interesting characters, its over-reliance on CGI special effects, its tendency to disappoint on even the most basic levels of empathy and pathos, its pathological desire to mass-produce loud stupidity; well, this is the film they’re talking about.
I, Frankenstein (2014) action/fantasy/sci-fi; USA/Australia; dir. Stuart Beattie; writers: Stuart Beattie (screenplay), Kevin Grevioux (graphic novel), based on characters by Mary Shelley.
Marketed as the newest film from the producers of Underworld, I, Frankenstein – starring Aaron Eckhart and Bill Nighy – was never likely to push too many buttons in the good taste department – the kind of movie Kevin Smith might describe as ‘not for critics’. The story revolves around Adam (Eckhart) following the death of his creator Dr. Frankenstein, who finds himself caught up in a war between Gargoyles and Demons, both of whom would seemingly like to get their stony or red-hot hands around a legendary book detailing the process used to bring Adam to life. The Gargoyle Queen gives Frankenstein Junior a home, but Adam refuses, preferring instead to wander the distant lands, away from the threat of war. Two hundred years later to the present day and Adam is still wandering, only now, everything’s changed. You know, we have, like, the internet and cars and all that now, and technology; Naberius, King or Prince or leader or Boss Demon (Bill Nighy) wants to create an army of Adams, or at least an army of something brought back from the dead. Dude, don’t you know about The Vampires? Our inhuman hero of course stands in the way.
I, Frankenstein is a generic, cliche-packed and disconsolate amalgut of about three dozen non-descript parts; a reminder of supernatural movies and TV shows past, the kind with brooding, chiselled superhuman leads and pastiche but charismatic demonic antagonists. Take a pinch of Spawn, a great big helping of Underworld, two or three slices of Blade, a dash of Joss Whedon’s Angel, Queen of the Damned, Day Watch, Night Watch, Van Helsing, Todd McFarlane…; now, piss away whatever you’d consider their charms to be (if any), and leave them all to wander aimlessly for two-hundred years – soulless, shackled and bored out of their minds – and you’d end up with something like I, Frankenstein, a movie that is not always terrible, even nice to look at in places, but suffers greatly from a lack of any kind of ambition or subtext or interest, and a dearth of originality. Despite a huge budget ($65 million), I, Frankenstein takes lots and lots of CGI talent and hard work and still only wants to aim waist-high, evoking the unwanted feeling of watching something unloved, cut-scenes from a videogame based on a movie. It’s not the only aesthetic choice in the movie that appears to be inspired by videogames. With detail-heavy plot-unravelling dialogue abound – the sort you might be forced to choose from as a made-up character in an RPG – as well as laughable characters and an absurd premise that you’d forgive if more quality were visible elsewhere, it may have been aiming for Tartarus but feels like thick tartare sauce.
Something around there smelt like fish, anyway; though it’s not Aaron Eckhart, despite half-heartedly wading through this bullshit with all the charisma of the worst Buffy villain-of-the-week. It would almost be insulting, but any anger dissipates by the final act, which tried in vain to make up for 70-something minutes previous. With the final glance at my watch, a smile formed; relief, no doubt – as the relatively short time wasted on this began to draw to an end. And then it did end, and I left, non-plussed, like I, Frankenstein had never happened at all.
Deryn O’Sullivan (@Silverscene_)
Deryn Paul O'Sullivan 