Frankenstein, the 90’s movie.

Apart from the family and friends reunions, I’ve been relaxing on my own. I watched a movie I‘ve wanted to see for a long time, and finished a book in five days, something I haven’t been able to do since summer.

First, the movie I watched was Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, though you better don’t think about the novel while watching it. The movie tries to be what Coppola’s Dracula was: a visually appealing film with a romantic story and a classical monster as its core, but utterly fails at it.

Actually a vanity project by its director, Kenneth Branagh, it shows. He casts himself as the young Victor Frankenstein, a young medicine student who immaturely decides to ‘conquer death’. I’ve mentioned his youth so often because Branagh seems to be too old to cast himself as Victor, a character whom he turns into an all-perfect, Marty Stu, bombastic hero, and just like that we’ve lost our protagonist. I, at least, couldn’t take him seriously, and his life is always serious: his mother dies, has a romance with his sister, searches for the secret of life and creates a monster. Without a moment of calm, in all that rush, I hardly know him and the beginning of the movie is boring when it’s not inadequately hilarious.

But there is actual comic relief of course, and the actor is fine, but the jokes are old and the friendship between him and Victor is showed in such a rush it’s like he’s never really there. In fact, he disappears from the movie in the last half hour, shouting a big NO in a house that few minutes later the monster burns (should we assume the worst?). But don’t worry; there are some emotions in the movie, some genuinely creepy emotions, too. Victor has an adopted sister, portrayed by Branagh’s real girlfriend, and though Helena Bonham Carter does all in her power, is still unpleasant to watch her snogging with Victor. Probably, it they wouldn’t mention constantly that they ‘used to’ be adoptive siblings and that they would love each other anyway. Seriously, they make a very big deal of their romance, though it becomes an important conflict at the end.    

The Monster, played by Robert de Niro, is barely in the picture. Which is a pity, because it could have saved the film. De Niro is wonderful, you can clearly see the effort, he could have changed the perception of the monster if given more time and better antagonists. But at the end, he falls for the hammy performance of Branagh in the too dramatic final scene.

If I watch this movie again, it will be with friends and for the laugh. I have even prepared a drinking game:

-        Take a shot every time Victor and his “sister” make out and an extra shot if they have recently discussed their sibling status.

-         Every time Victor does his laboratory job shirtless.

-         Every time someone shouts a big NO. every fucking character does.

-       Finally, take a shot for every scene Robert de Niro appears and almost redeems the film. Believe me, there aren’t many.