More than once, the exasperated characters accuse the crazy doctor of being the real “monster” in “Frankenstein” by Guillermo del Toro – so as not to confuse with “Frankenstein” by Mary Shelley, even if this last adaptation is close to the author’s intentions that any previous version put on the screen.
What is a director if not a man who plays God, and who among this circle identifies more with the monsters than Mr. Del Toro, the visionary Mexican director who began his career with “Cronos” (a “Frankenstein” – the dark fairy form) and won an Oscar for the respect he paid for foreigners in “the form of water”?
Alas, this same empathetic approach seems less revolutionary in “Frankenstein”, because most of the versions of Shelley’s history feel for the brute, as opposed to its creator (played less as a scientist than an artist tortured by a long hair Oscar Isaac). Boris Karloff embodied him like a tragic figure, crouching by the lake with the little girl, naive at the danger he poses for others. Now we get Jacob Elardi, resembling a Jock Emo or an injured soldier, which is partly true, because he was rebuilt in the corpses of several.
As Del Toro sees it, the pitiful creation of Frankenstein has been cursed in life, cannot be killed (even the balls do not stop it) and must face the same existential crisis which confronts us all. No one asks to be born, but once pushed in the world, we must each find our goal. The first volumes of “Frankenstein” presented a quote from John Milton’s “Paradise Lost”: “I asked you, manufacturer, my clay / to mold me?” In this version, the old blind man (David Bradley) encourages his visitor intellectually curious to seek the wisdom of this same volume.
In principle, Del Toro returned to the book for his Magnum Opus of two and a half hours, which cost more than “Titanic” and always seems to have been done for television (as much as it hurts me to say). Technically, “Frankenstein” was designed for Netflix, and although the streamer gives him whatever the theatrical race, he is contractually forced to honor, the visual effects have not been returned for consumption on the big screen. The baroque partition of Alexandre Desplat, on the other hand, compensates for grandeur.
Rest assured, Del Toro remains a cinematographic master, and each costume, together and accessory has been made with great imagination and intimidating attention to detail. But these elements can be better suited to consumption via the bulky book of the Netflix coffee table which will undoubtedly be released for its reward pressure, as opposed to the Fisheye presentation offered by the large format cameras of the DA Dan Laustsen. As beautiful as it can be, the whole film has the impression that we are watching a Judas. Strangely, the laustsen’s wide -angle objectives make “Frankenstein” smaller, while the point was about to press more image in each setting.
Del Toro once entertained the idea of dividing the story into two films, each told in a different perspective – first Frankenstein, followed by the revisionist version of the events of his creation – but he finally decided to present them one after the other. This transfer in the middle of the film dilutes the shock of the way in which the articulation of the miserable proves in the story of Del Toro (the creature could barely speak in the original universal monster film by James Whale).
In accordance with the epistolary novel by Shelley, the film opens in the Arctic, with a ship trapped in the ice. A monstrous figure goes through the sleigh, although his silhouette defies what the public surely holds in their heads. This form of hiking appears to be wrapped in rags, hiding his face until the film is on board in the pursuit of Dr. Frankenstein, the man who wanted it to life, but did not think about what comes next.
One wonders, is loyalty to Shelley a good thing? And is it even what the public wants the director of “Pan’s Labyrinth”, which brings all the strengths and weaknesses of his artistic talent to the project that he probably put on this land to do? Where the 1931 film ran 71 minutes, Del Toro takes more than twice this time.
Man has a brilliant spirit when it comes to identifying the deeper themes he wants to explore, but they can sometimes feel simplistic when they are presented in his films. Unlike “Pinocchio” – which treated similar ideas from man creating life without the involvement of women (or all that approaches the human bond) – no longer necessarily means more deeply. Once again, Del Toro shows a flawless attitude towards violence, pushing our faces with scalpels and bone saws (the sound can actually be more traumatic). But it is strangely slowed down in terms of representation of sexuality.
This proves to be comical inadvertently in a scene where Isaac, as Victor Frankenstein, is seated in the bathtub, drawn from the same angle of Del Toro presented Bradley Cooper Bathing in “Nightmare Alley”. Bubbles obscure the important bits. Then the doctor gets up, and we can also look at “Austin Powers”, while Del Toro blocks the scene using random objects to block his genitals.
Why is Del Toro so shy about nudity in a film where the same character, Dr. Frankenstein, shows himself graphically in Cadavers a few minutes later? The same thing applies to its homuncular Studly, wrapped in a loincloth that effectively deexed the statue type figure (which could otherwise be the sexiest version that we have seen since the “flesh for Frankenstein” Andy Warhol).
Is the “monster” still scary if he represents no sexual threat? And what is the abstract attraction that the future sister-in-law Elizabeth (Mia Goth) feels towards him, if the lust is out of the table? It does not seem to be questions that Del Toro considered, while others – including the central concerns of Shelley concerning scientific “ambition”, his word for uncontrolled experimentation which leads man to play God – seem relatively little interest.
Perhaps he believes that “Jurassic Park” warns (that it is not because man can mean that he should) have been sufficiently dissected in other horror films. Why resuscitate this here, when Del Toro can explore different areas of psychology, such as the scars that fathers leave on their sons and the way in which these injuries are visited in future generations?
The most mean character in the film is neither Frankenstein nor his creation, but the domineering father of Victor, Leopold (Charles Dance). Lauren Collins plays her most understanding, Claire, whose premature disappearance – giving birth to her brother, William (Felix Kammerer) – may have inspired the young Victor’s experiences to conquer death. No one launches a funeral more elegant than Del Toro, insofar as the vision of Claire’s face in the coffin becomes the most impactful visual in a film with countless choices.
Meanwhile, his devastated young son (Christian Convery) appears to be a future serial killer, finally winning a boss for his projects in Harlander by Christoph Waltz, a character who comes out precisely when his brain could have been useful. It is he who finds the abandoned water tower which serves as a Frankenstein laboratory (modeled after a Victorian structure similar to New Romney, Kent, but has published even more worthy of Mordor). Although the interiors are impressive, they can be too much, to the point of distraction.
The exteriors are not convincing, which undermines the illusion that Del Toro tries to achieve, so that a scene with CG Wolves seems too false to be overwhelming. “Frankenstein” takes a turn to the deep halfway, when Elardi broke out on the ship and assumes the narration for the benefit of the Scandinavian captain (Lars Mikkelsen). He moves to hear him tell how he escaped his burning tower, wearing himself without his chains – a slave raised to Marvel Superhero.
From the start, the creature displays an extraordinary force and the power to resist gunshots, and yet these very qualities make it feel more like Wolverine than a monster with modern eyes. Two centuries after Shelley has found a fictitious remedy for mortality, the species does not seem closer to the inversion of death. Dr. Frankenstein does not shout: “It’s alive! … Now, I know what it is to be God!” In Del Toro, revealing. Instead, we get characters who warn: “Only monsters play God” and a creature who wants company, confronted with the impossible task of life.
