| Frankenstein, Mary Shelly's Released: 1994 MPAA Rating: R Genre: Zombie Nuts and Bolts: Swearing to find a cure for the disease known as Death, Victor Frankenstein embarks upon the most ambitious medical breakthrough of all time. He actually succeeds in inventing Robert De Niro! And the world will never be the same. Summary: We start off in the year 1795. An angry sea captain named Walton (Aiden Quinn) decides that he wants to drag a bunch of shmucks along for a journey to find the North Pole. This was a popular thing to do in the 18th and 19th century. Everyone and their mother wanted to find the goddamn North Pole. Why? Who the fuck knows? Boring, drab soulless place by the look of it. Maybe they were trying to find Santa Claus. Anyway, their ship rams into an iceberg and Walton's crew begin contemplating mutiny. But before anything can happen, a deranged bearded fellow named Victor Frankenstein (Kenneth Branagh) arrives on the scene. Walton takes him into his quarters where Franky begins to unveil the secrets of his horrific life. Queue the flashback music. Now we truck back to the year 1773. Victor is a little child living in a big ass house in Geneva. His father (Ian Holm) is a famous baron as well as a physician. The only significant part about this childhood flashback is that we get to meet Victor's future bride Elizabeth for the first time. Liz' parents were killed by Scarlet Fever and she had been taken to the Frankenstein estate to live. Vic and Liz will grow up as brother and sister, but that won't stop them from shagging each other in future years. So now we flash-forward in this flashback. The only significant moment here is the birth of Vic's brother William. Unfortunately, their mother dies while delivering the baby and this represents Victor's first exposure to death. Vic and his mum were pretty close, so this moment is one of great tragedy for all concerned. Let's flash ahead some more shall we? Three years after the death of Victor and William's mother, we find that Vic is getting ready to leave Geneva to go study science at the medical university in Ingolstadt. His father the Baron gives Victor a diary that his mother had intended to leave for him some years prior. By this point, Victor and Elizabeth (Helena Bonham Carter) are hot and heavy for one another. They enjoy a few stolen romances out behind the barn while no one is looking. They keep referencing the fact that they are brother and sister. I guess deep down inside, they truly wanted to engage in an incestuous relationship and are put off by the fact that they are not true siblings. Those wacky Genevans. Okay, enough with the boring romantic bullshit, lets get to the heart of the matter. It is now 1793 and Victor is attending university. He meets Henry Clerval (Tom Hulce) who will become Victor's lifelong friend. Now while Victor is an excellent student, he constantly gets on his professor's nerves by questioning the latter's narrow-minded approach towards science. Victor takes a liking towards another professor known as Waldeman (John Cleese). Waldeman is something of a black sheep within the scientific community and has been the subject of town gossip due to some scandal that erupted a few years back (I guess he wanted to pork HIS sister as well). Now Waldeman recognizes that Victor has the same questing fire within him that he once held. He lets Victor and Henry into his personal laboratory where we find that Waldy has succeeded in bestowing life unto a severed gorilla arm. The arm even manages to latch onto Henry's hand damn near crushing it. This experience only serves to drive Victor ever onward in his mad desire to find a cure for the most crippling of all human ailments…death. (As far as I know, they have yet to find a cure for death. Christ, this is the 21st century. You would think they would have developed a vaccine by now!) And speaking of vaccines, when Professor Waldeman is conducting hideous secret experiments, he spends his evenings administering vaccines to cholera victims around town (Of which there are a lot). One of the patients is an ugly peg-legged pirate looking man (Robert De Niro) who absolutely refuses to be injected with a needle. Waldeman insists on treating him and the man withdraws a knife stabbing Waldeman to death. He is soon captured and sentenced to hang. Victor is naturally beset by this entire affair, and decides to continue Waldeman's experiments. He steals Waldeman's brain as well as the body of the convicted murderer. He becomes completely immersed in his work and begins putting together a contraption, which runs off of electric eels and amniotic fluid (Afterbirth). He also gathers together a few more body parts from various people (Or materials as he calls them). As the cholera contagion worsens, Henry tries to get Vic to come home to Geneva. Even Elizabeth shows up to try and bring her boyfriend home. But you know how these mad doctors are. They won't rest until they've mastered the art of heresy. You pretty much know how the story goes from here. Victor Frankenstein is the king of all fuck-ups. He runs around hot and sweaty turning cranks and valves and prostrating over the protean fervor of his own dementia. After the lights go out, he releases his patchwork brainchild from its copper bathtub onto the floor. This scene is actually kind of funny. Like a newborn babe, this thing has no sense of balance. Add to that the fact that there is oil and snot all over the floor. Victor rushes over to help him stand up, but ultimately the two slip and fall into a heap onto the floor. To make matters worse, a big chunk of machinery falls down from the rafters and clocks the ugly guy right in the head. Presumably, this is where his resultant brain damage stems from. On top of that, the Monster gets his foot caught in a chain connected to a counterweight, which hoists him way up into the air. Victor is kind of a dick about the whole thing and leaves him there to hang. He writes down in his journal how his experiment was a failure and that his 'patient' is now dead. Oh how wrong you are Vicky! De Niro eventually works his way down off the chains and attacks Victor. Victor manages to get away however. Without even packing his bags, he hops the next bus for Geneva. The Monster on the other hand, finds this badass looking black leather duster. Hey, just because you're ugly doesn't mean you can't dress in style. He enters the streets of Ingolstadt and tries to his grub on. He steals a loaf of bread, which naturally sends the locals into a tizzy. They beat him with sticks and chase him out of town. The Monster is forced to hide amongst carriages of the dead in order to hide. Wow, that's gotta suck. I used to work in a butcher shop, so I know what rotting flesh smells like. Trust me, you will never find a more foul odor than that of rancid meat. Kind of reminds me of the scent that would come wafting up every time my crazy Aunt Esther took her shoes off. We would beat her for fun. Anyway, while Victor is high-tailing it back to Geneva, the Monster heads north until he finds a small farmhouse. He befriends an old blind man and even learns how to play the kook's recorder (Which is a fancy term for wood-pipe). He tries to help out the family by tilling the fields and harvesting potatoes from the frozen ground. But the old man's kids are a bunch of ungrateful Gen-Xrs and they drive him away because he's so ugly. From this point forward, the creature begins to walk to Geneva. You see, shortly before leaving the laboratory in Ingolstadt, the Monster snatched up Victor's journal, which just happens to contain his home address, phone number and social security number. Just imagine the Frankenstein family's surprise when they discover their phone bill has been jacked up five hundred bucks due to all those 1-900 calls. Upon arriving in Geneva, the Monster comes upon little William Frankenstein. Vowing revenge on Victor Frankenstein for giving him Down's syndrome, the Monster grabs little Willie by the neck and crushes his throat. Now naturally, this causes the family a great bit of turmoil. Figures. Kids always prompt this sort of melodramatic reaction in movies. Why is it, if an old person gets killed, no one really seems to care? Are old people somehow more deserving of death? Is the sum value of their lives somehow lesser than that of a child's? I don't think so. Old people pay taxes and build fences and bake pies and keep the stock of the Denture Cream companies constantly on the rise. What do little kids contribute? Not much unless you are a beneficiary of the new tax laws. Life draining little dividends is what they are. Oh well. Another rant for another time. Victor organizes a search party to track William's killer. At one point, he actually comes face to face with the Monster and is horror-stricken when he suspects that he may in fact be responsible. The Monster makes an appointment for them to meet and do lunch. Victor leaves the rest of the posse and travels off into the icy tundra just beyond hill. Seriously…the snow-capped mountains are literally right across the street from the Frankenstein estate. The Monster goes on an on about he is lacking any sort of identity and how everyone hates him. Hey, people would hate you too if your face looked like a jumble of pigs intestines! He forces Victor to promise to create a mate for him; someone just as butt-ugly as he is, so that they can run off and sire a bunch of butt-ugly kids and build a butt-ugly house and keep three or four butt-ugly dogs that will inevitably tear up what I can only guess would be a butt-ugly lawn. Victor naturally would rather kill the creature than serve him, but the Monster is a wily sort of fellow and he trumps him with the guilt card. He also shoehorns in a promise to kill Elizabeth if he doesn't agree to build him a woman. So Vic is forced to mope back across the street feeling worse than ever. But his house must exist downhill of the icy mountains, because that's exactly where the next boulder of shit is heading. He returns home to find out that his life-long friend Justine Moritz has been accused of killing William! Elizabeth and he rush down to the police station to see what is happening but unfortunately they are too late. An unruly mob of pissed off Genevans break into the prison and abducts Justine. They drag her out onto the parapets of the building and hang her. What is it with people of Germanic descent? It doesn't take much to set them off does it? Most children are born with a silver spoon in their mouth, but these guys must have slid out of the womb with a torch and a pitchfork in each hand. Needless to say, Vic and Liz are powerless to save poor Justine. On top of that, the Monster steals Justine's body. He plans on giving it to Victor as materials for his new science project. Now Vic decides that Elizabeth and she should rush their nuptials, pack up their shit, and get the hell out of dodge. This is the first smart thing Victor has done since this movie began! He has no intention whatsoever on resurrecting Justine just so his bastard creation can have a live-in fuck-buddy. However, the Monster overhears of Victor's plans and sneaks into the house. While Vic is with the search party hunting down the Monster, the ugly bum breaks into his father's bedroom and strangles him in his sleep. Then he sneaks into Victor's room and kills Elizabeth. Not only does he kill her, but he tears her heart clear out of her chest and dumps her body onto the floor. Victor bursts into the room just in time to see his true love's dying heart beating inside of her murderer's hand. Victor Frankenstein's brain goes bye-bye. He is now completely certifiable and he takes Elizabeth's body up into the tower laboratory. He chops off her head and sews it onto Justine's body. Then he whips off his shirt so the ladies can enjoy his buff abs once again as he races about trying to bring his dead love back to life. Actually I'm not sure if he takes his shirt off a second time or not, but he DOES seem to enjoy oiling himself down and flexing for the masses. He brings Elizabeth back to life and she looks like the top contender for the Doctor Evil Look-a-Like Contest. In a manner that miraculously enough does NOT involve sex, Victor beckons Elizabeth to say his name. "Say my name!" he drones on and on. I half expected him to shout out, "Who's your sugar-daddy?" Anyway, the Monster shows up and Victor and he get into a tug of war for the hand of the disfigured Elizabeth. Elizabeth is not only uglier than a bag full of assholes, but she's quasi-retarded to boot. She doesn't quite understand what has happened to her. Eventually she comes to realize that road kill has a better chance of getting a date than she does. Unwilling to live as a freak, she breaks an oil lantern above her head which succeeds in blowing up the entire house. This ends the flashback. Now we come back to the year 1795 and Victor has just finished telling his tale to Captain Walton. He dies of pneumonia shortly after doing so. Walton decides to give Vic a proper funeral by burning his remains on a sheet of ice. But lo and behold, guess who shows up? That's right ladies and germs; it's the man of the hour himself, the Frankenstein Monster! In a moment of tender humanity, the monster weeps over the body of his 'father'. With torch in hand, he takes Vic's body out onto an isolated floating piece of ice where they both go up in flames. Captain Walton turns around and says, "Fuck this crazy bullshit!" and decides to head home. The moral of the story is plainly thus: Don't travel to the North Pole. It's fucking boring there! Acting/Dialogue: When I first read an article stating that Robert De Niro was cast to play the Frankenstein Monster, I laughed so hard that I snorted Pepsi clear out of my nose and onto the magazine (I've since switched to Diet Coke and haven't had any problems since). This is not a lamentation against Bobby D mind you. He's one of my favorite actors. But the role of the Frankenstein Monster is not exactly the sort of cinematic artistry I've come to expect from America's favorite gangster. But I kept faith that De Niro would master a command performance no matter what. I wasn't disappointed either. De Niro brings a touch of humanity to the Frankenstein monster that has never really been touched upon before. But this is not to say that he turns the guy into a sissy. No no no. This is De Niro after all and the word 'sissy' is not even in the man's lexicon. Although he gives a stellar performance, there are a few occasions when you can see the De Niro mannerisms through the makeup. More than once, I had to steel myself out of fear of seeing the Frankenstein Monster rise up against his creator decrying, "You tawking ta me? Are you tawking ta me? Well I'm da only one here." Now Kenneth Branagh is no stranger to either stage or screen. And once in a while, he even enjoys warming his ass in the director's chair. There is no level of theatrical sophistication in existence that Branagh cannot master if he puts his mind to it. He's proven his worth time and time again; enough so, that I MAY even forgive him for that piece of shit Wild Wild West. Branagh's strength is that he knows exactly when to project emotion and when he must reign it in. Although the character of Victor Frankenstein is an obsessive one, it is not a one-dimensional character. For the first time ever, we are finally treated to a Frankenstein that we can get behind. We see Victor's passion for life counter-weighted by his obsession with death. Helena Bonham Carter does a fine job as well. She helps flesh out a rather flat character by injecting a bit of independence into the role of Elizabeth Frankenstein. If ever there is a moment when I'm about to go off and do something colossally stupid, Helena is the gal I want at my back to tell me what an ass I am. (Well, actually…Mrs. Headhunter is the gal I want at my back in times of trouble. But assuming that she is otherwise indisposed and Salma Hayak is busy that week, then Helena would DEFINITELY be the go-to gal). Gore: There's just something inherently unjustifiable about watching a man scooping up some woman's afterbirth and saving it in a bucket. But that's mild compared to some of the other shit we get to see. The Frankenstein Monster for one is fairly nasty. Branagh doesn't give us a flattop and a bunch of corny neck-bolts. Instead, he prefers his monsters to look more like accident victims. De Niro is adorned with a shaved head and various facial scars as well as a contorted lip. Proto-Liz equally looks unkempt. She has little burn patches across a partially balding scalp and a wicked case of Lazy Eye. The only other gory scene occurs when the Monster punches a hole through Elizabeth's chest. In total, the gore is unsettling enough but Horror veterans will likely not be affected. Guilty Pleasures: It's ladies night out this time around! For you particularly demented pervs out there, you get to see the monster's little Frankenweinie flopping about as the guy spills out of an oily tank of amniotic fluid. Yum. I'm sure its fake since De Niro is wearing a rubber body suit during the bulk of this scene. In the same sequence, Kenneth Branagh offers a bit of free advertising for his favorite tanning salon as he flurries about shirtless trying to bring his creation to life. Nothing here for the guys I'm afraid. Sorry gents. The Good: What is it about the Frankenstein story that makes it so enduring? After all, he is not only the most infamous mad doctor of all time, but his tale has been told and retooled nearly as often as his gothic counterpart Count Dracula. Yet, still it continues to thrive and garner interest. No two Frankenstein films can rightly be compared to any other, but each one contributes its own singular piece of artistry and in many ways parallels the ambitions of the central character. What makes Branagh's film the definitive Frankenstein movie is that he elevates the central themes to nigh epic proportions. I think the Frankenstein story works because it is accessible on a multitude of levels. In one hand, it is easy to recognize some of the feminine aspects derived from Mary Shelly's vision. The desire to create and nurture life is an ideal that most humans aspire to at one point or another. The reasons behind such a lofty objective may vary, but the story speaks out to our most primitive primordial needs. In addition to that is this masculine arrogance that comes from mankind's need to dominate over God. Much like Richard Attenborough's character from Jurassic Park, Victor Frankenstein climbs to the height of empirical possibility, but fails to take any responsibility for his actions. By the time he finds himself confronted by the folly of his ways, it is of course too late. Any number of metaphors can be attached to this movie's structural base. Personally, I choose to view it as a 2-hour public service announcement for safe sex. Victor fails to use a condom and as such, the ugliness of venereal disease comes back to spank him in the ass. But this is not a simple case of Crabs mind you. It's going to take a bit more than a shot from the free clinic to clear this mess up. One of Frankenstein's most sophisticated qualities is that expertly weaves together the five classic conflicts of literature (Man vs. Man, Man vs. Nature, Man vs. Society, Man vs. God, Man vs. Himself) The tragedy of which, is that Victor Frankenstein becomes the embodiment of all of these grandiose conflicts and fails to resolve all of them. The primary question that Frankenstein puts to us is: What is the price of obsession? Victor learns full well the cost of such a victory, much to the dismay of his family. Vic decided to upstage God, and as a result God laid the smack down. But does Victor's life lesson have the ability to educate and humble others? Yup. Upon hearing Victor's sad story, Captain Walton comes to realize that he is not the benefactor of all mankind (Despite how much he wants to be). He makes the wise choice and decides to adhere to the advice of his betters rather than continue on his mad campaign to blaze a route to a region of land so dreary that no one in their right mind would want to go there anyway. Of all the movies made about Frankenstein over the years, Branagh's project appears to be a closer adaptation of the novel than any other. I've tried reading Mary Shelly's book. I couldn't get past page 20. It is slow, boring and crappy. Compound this with the fact that I have the attention span of a fruit fly and you can see why I never really gave this literary classic a fighting chance. Branagh is determined to educate us as to the seminal value between his movie and the original fiction. There are no hump-backed sidekicks or elevator boots here. In fact, Branagh takes the story of Frankenstein back to its roots by showing us that the Creature is actually quite intelligent. Not a week after its initial creation, we find him frustratingly trying to read from Victor's journal. All told, he does a pretty bang up job for someone who's not even a month old! This monster was definitely NOT a product of the Seminole County Florida educational system. By the third act, we come to find that the Monster's intellect is matched only by that of his creator. Not only does he have the ability of independent thought, but also he has a smattering of creativity and a sparkle of philosophical insight. Very little of the creature's time is spent grunting at gypsies and goose-stepping with outstretched arms. Kenneth Branagh's ambitious movie is not entirely dissimilar from the creative obsessions of Victor Frankenstein himself. Branagh took the scraps and dismembered limbs of prior materials and sewed them together in an effort to birth a creation that was not only representative of its prior achievements, but greater than all others combined. But does Branagh become the victim of his own passions? A gross less than half that of the film's overall budget would seem to suggest so. The Bad: There are a few little quibbles that I have regarding this flick. Not many, but a few nonetheless. The overall production value is not as impressive as I was hoping it to be. After seeing the phenomenal work done with Coppola's Dracula, I was really expecting to see a lot of eerie gothic spires and craggy dungeons. Frankenstein Manor is kind of threadbare and the only real set we ever get to see is this gigantically empty ballroom; No paintings on the walls, no candelabra, not even a cool bookcase or mantle. What a boring place to live. William is lucky he got strangled at such a young age. He would likely die of acute boredom within a year otherwise. Personally, I consider it a mercy killing. On that same note, the set for the North Pole sequence is pretty crappy looking too. It is obvious that it was filmed on a sound stage of some kind and not shot on location. I wonder why the producers decided not to shoot on location. I can hazard a guess. They were probably concerned that their overpaid cast members might fall asleep during shooting. Why? As mentioned numerous times above…its because the North Pole is FUCKING BORING! Fuck the penguins. This place sucks. I also could have done without the fruity little ballroom dance that Vic and Liz have in the first act. C'mon Vic! You're supposed to be more macho than that! Try some slam dancing or something. That kind of lame ass ballroom shit is just the sort of nonsense that forced women to question our sexuality and gave rise to post modern nightmares like N'Synch and the Backstreet Boys! You won't catch Stallone doing any of that sort of nancy stuff; Or Shwarzenegger for that matter! Like I said earlier, I'm not familiar with the original novel, but there's one scene that I'm aware of that deviates greatly from the source material. In Mary Shelly's work, Elizabeth was not brought back to life only to blow up the house. The monster strangled her and that was it. Moviemakers often life to go to great lengths to end her life in the most grisly way possible. I seem to recall a 70s variant of the story wherein the Monster ripped Liz' head clean off her body. I think it was Frankenstein: The True Story, but don't quote me on that. While I have no problem with Branagh's approach to the scene, Shelly purists will likely consider this an over-the-top breach of literary integrity. Now there's one scene towards the end that I have a lot of trouble with. Mutant-Liz decides to off herself right? So she grabs a common household oil lantern and holds it above her head. She smashes the thing and oil spills onto her body setting herself aflame. Okay. Fine. No problem. But two seconds later, the ENTIRE FUCKING HOUSE EXPLODES!!!!! What the fuck did they put into that lantern, C-4? I thought houses were meant to be sturdy back then. There's no way you are going to convince me that one little oil lantern would set the entire thing ablaze within seconds. In one hand you hold what is commonly referred to as "suspension of disbelief". In the other hand you hold a big fat steaming cow-patty. Guess which category this climax falls into. Great Lines: "All that I once loved lies in a shallow grave by my hand." --Victor Frankenstein crying over spilled milk. "I do know that for the sympathy of one living being, I would make peace with all. I have love in me the likes of which you can scarcely imagine and rage the likes of which you would not believe. If I cannot satisfy the one, I will indulge the other." --The Monster having a pow-wow with Victor. "If you deny me my wedding night…I shall be with you on yours!" --The Monster attempting to blackmail Victor into making him a bride. "I keep my promises!" --The Monster after murdering Elizabeth. See above. "He never gave me a name." -The Monster replying to Captain Walton when asked who he is. Overall Rating: 9 out of 10 severed heads. |
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