Guillermo del Toro's FRANKENSTEIN is perfectly okay. An awards bait version that references a large number of earlier cinematic versions, the works of GDT and numerous other films, but it suffers because it's a film that is frequently lacking in connecting material that there are plot problems. I think it maybe del Toro's weakest film.
The problem for me began at the start of the film when the monster attacks the ship and we get CGI mayhem. Bodies are tossed about like animated bodies and the film instantly slipped into cartoon territory for me. The CGI issues run through the whole film with the wolves looking particularly bad. So much of the film looks like the wrong sort of unreal. I was never into the world on screen, which coupled with the fact that the set design, while stunning, is really just a series of cool looking locations and not a world that connects to anything.
I dislike that the film seems to be "paying homage" to every Frankenstein film ever made with shots mirroring the Hammer films(the monster's appearance at the foot of Frankenstein's bed echoes Christopher Lee's appearance in CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN), lines lifted from numerous Hollywood films (The line where Frankenstein said he knows the creature has a brain or something because he put it there nis lifted from I WAS A TEENAGED FRANKENSTEIN) and bits borrowed from some Euro-versions. The film also heavily references earlier GDT films (the stair way in the castle looks like the stairs in CRIMSON PEAK) and numerous other works of art (Bernie Wrightson is referenced everywhere), with the creature reminding me of the Engineers of the Ridley Scott Alien prequels if they went through a Ziggy Stardust phase. Elizabeth mirrors look like Mary Shelly. Much like a film from Quentin Tarantino, I kept being pulled out of the film by all of the homages and borrows.
The script and continuity are a mess. I'm not sure if it is because things were cut out or because del Toro simply didn't care and just focused on the big scenes and never connecting things up. The time frame is almost always suspect. Things just happen just because- Walz's character suddenly wanting to be put into the monster, which we suspected, but which happens at a point where it makes no sense other than to provide a way to remove him from the narrative. From the trapped ship suddenly being damn close to open water despite being trapped in the ice, to sets not matching their exteriors (The blindman cabin is four times bigger on the inside then outside), to mayhem happening and no one moving either a way or attempting to stem it (much of the wedding sequence where every person is just a mannequin). The design of the lab looks cool but makes no real-world sense - I mean seriously what would that castle tower be in a real-world setting - if nothing else so much of the tower is open to the elements. (Yes I know it's a movie but it still makes no sense in that world or ours. Additionally, how do the sets connect to each other? We almost never see anyone go from place to place; we are just in each unconnected and wildly oversized location with effort to connect them up and make them a real place. On stage that is allowed out of the limits of the space, but in a film it makes you wonder "how did they get there?"
And speaking of locations, I think the film is going to play different between those who see the film on the big screen and those that see it on a small one. I think those who see it big will be overwhelmed to such a degree by the massive and glorious sets that they will never notice all of the problems with the plot, narrative structure and characters.
And then there are the frequent moments where something is important until it's not. For example, Victor mentions worrying about decay, so he keeps some bodies and parts on ice (Christoph Waltz) but other body parts- like the creature, or the things he's vivisecting, are just left out. That is the most glaring problem but there are others.
The film is a small three or four character story in huge settings. Outside of the university, the ship, a street scene and the wedding there are no sense of people in this world except those that are needed. I suspect that this is because Frankenstein is so self-centered that he only sees the world as about him, but even the monster's tale has minimal characters. This would have been okay because Frankenstein says that some of what he says is fact and some is not but it's all true, but at no point does he describe anything. The people listening to his tale would have filled in more people and details. All of the settings in the film exist for the shots but there is no real world beyond the walls even to connect up the locations. Worse if you watch the film many of the locations are only shot from one angle as if they truly are sets and not real locations. This is a huge flaw with the infamous CALIGULA where so many of the sets are just a wall or two. Here many of the castle/lab locations son't feel like a place you can really walk around.
The most damning part of the film is that there are no real characters, Frankenstein, like his father, is a shit from first frame to until right before he dies. The monster has no real arc. We pity him because we have 200 years of versions that say we should. Granbted he is largely a good guy until he decides, out of left field film wise, to be a monster in a change that is narratively necessary, but emotionally and intellectually false. The characters act in scenes where things happen but we never see how they get from emotion to emotion. We don't see the creature's hatred of mankind because the only ones who hate him is Frankenstein and the hunters who would have shot at anyone who was in the situatins they were in when they ran across him - especially after the blind man. His flight into the polar wilderness, like almost everything that happens, doesn't make sense other than it is there to get us from point A to B. They do things because that's the way the story goes n(in the novel and other versions there is a reason why he flees north), not because it makes any logical sense. The other versions of the story that vary from the novel work because they give us real characters with emotions and desires that are more than one dimensional and make things happen, whereas here del Toro does everything in a kind of shorthand that is a slave to the basic narrative arc and cuts away everything else including characters.
As a result of the extreme limitations of the script the performances are adequate. Oscar Isaac is fine as son of a bitch Frankenstein but there is no range because he has nothing to do but rage. (Peter Cushing did a much better job of being a bastard creator, doin it so well he continued for 15 years or so of sequels). Jacob Eloridi is similarly hampered by a role which is either pained bewilderment or rage. Actually, there is nothing there but a mirror that we are forced to reflect our own feelings on because is simply able to give us anything but a basic performance. Mia Goth's Elizabeth exists purely to be the moral center, of sorts but is limited to pontifications. Her seeming semi-fascination with Victor doesn't quite work, especially once she suddenly rejects him and she simply becomes a mouthpiece for morality.
Don't get me wrong the film isn't bad, I just don't think it's the best of the Frankenstein films, nor the best film of the year. After all I stayed for the entire movie and never felt the need to leave the theater knowing that I could see the rest Friday when it hits Netflix. Ultimately, it's a good film but like the creature at its heart you can see how ir was sewn together from other better material.
