This big budget, gorgeously shot, beautifully designed film falls under the "who the hell would greenlight this movie?" column.
VICTOR FRANKENSTEIN is the classic Frankenstein legend that we are all familiar with, but told from the perspective of his loyal assistant Igor.
The film opens with Igor (a very game Daniel Radcliffe) as a hunchback clown in a London circus. Serving as the circus' doctor as well, Igor is brutalized by the troupe.
When the apple of his eye falls from the trapeze one night, Igor saves her life with the assistance of Dr. Frankenstein, in attendance that evening at the circus.
Victor (James McAvoy) sees a gifted doctor in Igor, not a clown and helps him escape his tortured life. After a quick cyst removal (in particularly disgusting fashion involving siphoning a gallon of pus out of Igor's back) Igor is suddenly a dashing young Englishman, every bit the equal of McAvoy's charming if eccentric doctor.
The film then spins the tale you know, but with some strong additions, including Andrew Scott (Spectre) as a religious detective obsessed with stopping Frankenstein from playing God and Charles Dance (Game of Thrones, Alien3) as Frankenstein's father, carrying a family legacy that has driven Victor's motives.
Every set is beautiful, every costume is stunning, every crowd is massive. This is a big budget film.
But why?
The story involves you, but with Frankenstein's monster pushed to the background and only appearing in the final ten minutes, you're left with a Victorian bromance and a pretty trapeze artist creating animal zombies.
McAvoy and Radcliffe are both good, it's cool to look at, but ho hum at its center.
With a huge budget and only $5 million at the box office, this monster was dead on arrival.
And just like the monster that Victor finally creates, the film has no soul, with very little going on beneath its shiny veneer.
We'll give it a C.
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