This is How Movies Should Be Made

For all the hype it got I was expecting a lot more!

Admirable film.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

This is such a bad movie!! Why does Kenneth Branagh keep doing this? He's very gifted but seems to take things too far. And this is a prime example. I couldn't watch the whole thing. At first it was like watching the proverbial train wreck. But then I started telling myself that my time was worth more than this. My goal was to plug through it but ended up writing this instead. And it was nominated? I wonder by whom...

The film, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein is a big budget snoozefest that is a boring watch and a really poorly made movie. While the film is sharp looking and the period costumes and sets look great, the film is hard to watch. The film is way too long and self indulgent on the part of director/leading actor Kenneth Branagh. The film is more horrible than horror and lacks the proper tone or narrative to pull this material off. There is a lot of stuff that should have been on the cutting room floor and a more subtle approach to this would have gone a long way to making this a better film. In this instance, less would have been more. Instead, Brangh thought big and the film is a terrible disjointed mess. This epic piece of big budget garbage has little in the way of horror and is more of a period melodrama with bad storytelling, big scale swashbuckling action, a bombastic score and hammy acting. None of which does the material any favors and is a pretentious mess. In addition to dropping the ball with the direction of the film, Kenneth Branagh stunk it up big time with his lousy performance as lead Victor Frankenstein. But don't just take my word for it. Both screenwriter Frank Darabond and producer Francis Ford Coppala have each come out publicly to disavow the film. The film flopped in the US when it was originally released theatrically and had Francis Ford Coppala directed it as planned it would have been a much better film and a companion piece to his awesome Bram Stoker's Dracula.

Not sure what was on Branagh's mind here, but casting De Nero as the monster was way off beam, and the make-up didn't really work. When you know the face of the young Don Corleoni us under that mask you are just waiting for the next smart remark. Thankfully he avoided the excessively philosophically thinking, eloquent and educated monster that was utterly incredible in the original book, but the one moment of reflection between him and Frankenstein in the ice-cave simply did not ring true. There was a poor understanding of the big screen. And some ridiculously comic moments that were too staged. See Bonham Carter running across the lawn to meet Frankie's horse, just makes you ask why he did not ride up to the house? Then after the monster has harvested the field of turnips, the camera pans to De Nero's face in - to let us all know who did it - just looks so pantomime and silly. But the worst thing is that Branagh seemed to use any excuse to get his shirt off. This was a six-pack too far.

After "Frankenstein" (1931), "The Curse of Frankenstein" and "The Horror of Frankenstein", this is the fourth adaptation of the 1818 Mary Shelley novel that I have seen in the last ten months, notwithstanding the numerous sequels to the first two films. Of those four, this is the most faithful to the novel - which, as with "Dracula", I have never actually read - as well as the most faithful version ever made. This is an absolutely brilliant take on the material. After the 1957 and 1931 films (both of which are referenced several times), it is my third favourite "Frankenstein" film. The film was not well received critically or very successful commercially in the US, which led to the joke at the time that Mary Shelley wanted her name taken off of it which, given its aforementioned fidelity to the source material, is more than a little ironic.As with "Henry V" and "Much Ado About Nothing", Kenneth Branagh excels as both an actor and a director and has rapidly become one of my favourites in each category. His Victor Frankenstein, a character who was based on Shelley's brilliant but often unstable and uncaring husband Percy, is a good and decent man who is undone by his own fanaticism. His attempts to resurrect the dead are motivated by the noblest of intentions. He hopes to allow humanity to cheat death so that people never again have to lose loved ones, an obsession which begins after the tragic death of his mother in childbirth, something which nicely plays into Victor's later problems with "giving birth" himself. Branagh plays the title character brilliantly, creating a tragic figure who elicited my sympathy in spite of his extremely misguided and unwise experiments. On the directing side of things, the film looks beautiful. The sets and the scenery are gorgeous and the more whimsical scenes at the beginning of the film serve as an excellent contrast to the horror elements later on. This is best demonstrated by two scenes which feature dancing: one lovely one towards the beginning in which Victor and Elizabeth are seen at a ball and another, macabre one in which they dance around his laboratory after she has been resurrected. The framework scenes involving Captain Walton's Arctic expedition are extremely effective as his fanaticism offers a nice contrast to Victor's. Unlike Victor, however, Walton learned his lesson before it was too late. I don't know whether or not it is true but, according to IMDb, the producer Francis Ford Coppola wanted Branagh to cut the first half an hour of the film but he refused. This was certainly for the best as these scenes are crucial to understanding Victor's character as well as providing very good contrasts as I mentioned before. I'm not very familiar with Coppola's body of work but I find it hard to believe that he could have failed to understand that. There were not many actors or directors, living or dead, whom I would describe as artists but Branagh is certainly one of them.Another thing that I love about Branagh's films is his great eye for casting, notwithstanding Keanu Reeves and Michael Keaton in "Much Ado About Nothing". Much like his "father," the film's take on the Creature is a tragic, misunderstood figure. He starts off as gentle and kind but becomes a killer after he is mistreated and abused. His scene with the blind grandfather, the only person who is kind to him, is one of the best in the film. He vows revenge on Frankenstein for abandoning him to the very cruel world of 1793. In line with the novel, this Creature is far more articulate and intelligent than most versions and Robert De Niro is excellent in the role. However, I have to say that I've always found Victor to be a far more interesting character than his creation and this film is no exception. Helena Bonham Carter is extremely strong as Victor's eventual wife Elizabeth, a very intelligent and kind young woman who is murdered by the vengeful Creature on her wedding night. Her love for Victor survives her resurrection but it is not strong enough to prevent her from committing suicide after she was repulsed by her own appearance and its similarity to the Creature's. She and Branagh, who began a relationship during the film, have great chemistry. The film has a very strong supporting cast overall, including Ian Holm, Branagh's "mascot" Richard Briers, a surprisingly good John Cleese in one of his only completely serious roles, Tom Hulce (who was cast in preference to Branagh as Mozart in "Amadeus", though he clearly didn't hold a grudge!), Cherie Lunghi, Celia Imrie and Aidan Quinn.Overall, this is a sorely underrated film which provides a fascinating and thought-provoking take on one of the most widely adapted novels of the 19th Century.