As hooks go – Frankenstein’s monster is still alive, two hundred years after his creation – is actually a pretty good one. Yes, I know, the book is set in the 18th Century, not 1817, and yes, I agree, the film would require a writer and director with a particular lightness of touch if you were going to avoid accidentally remaking California Man, but you can see the potential. Body horror, the cruelty of ageing, the development of Frankenstein’s emotional and intellectual facilities over two centuries, there is a lot you could do with the idea.
Or, you could do a film where angels and demons fight for no real reason beyond, meh, that’s probably what they’d do, and somebody called Frankenstein (but who is essentially just Aaron Eckhart in a big coat) waves a couple of pointy broom sticks around until everyone falls over. You could do it in 3D. It would make the coat look even bigger.
Guess what? They did that one. The fighty fighty Aaron Eckhart in a big coat one. The worst option available. The shit pasta salad at the shit buffet slopped onto your shit plate from a ladle carved out of shit one. Anything else would have been a less crap take on the concept of Frankenstein’s monster. Even the California Man scenario would have been better than what they did. Even if somebody had tracked down Pauly Shore and tried to make him a star again. Even if they let him have a go at the script. Even if they called it I, Frankenstein Buuuuuddy. It would have been better than this. Yeah. I said it. It blows.
I, Frankenstein doesn’t make a lot of sense, but thanks to a pile of handy exposition-as-dialogue, I can tell you that ordinary humans don’t know about the endless war between angels and demons. Or about gargoyles, and what they really are (gargoyles are really angels). I got the impression the film was set in a different version of reality though, so I’m not sure how much any of it matters. I think we are talking about a fictional world filled with fictional people (none of whom we actually meet bar the two who turn out to be working for demons) who don’t know that creatures they thought were fictional weren’t fictional (in that world, which is of course, fictional). Or, maybe the amalgam city was supposed to be in our world. It did have Bill Nighy being evil by extennnndinng some of his worrrrds and that does happen quite a lot in our version of reality, so maybe it was our world. Yeah? Maybe. I got confused. Maybe I don’t know half of the truth about gargoyles. Maybe I’m living a lie. A lie about gargoyles.
Anyway, the gargoyles/angels are losing the war. You do wonder why God doesn’t just make more angels if he is running out of them but in fairness, this isn’t a film that is overly concerned with the accurate portrayal of religious iconography. You also wonder why, if the number of gargoyles/angels has been reduced to almost nothing, there seems to be so many more of them as the film progresses. Again, I’m not sure it matters. The film progresses. Frankenstein still has his broom sticks and now he has a girlfriend as well. At the end of the film he says, “I, Frankenstein” in a very silly way. Yes, he actually says I, Frankenstein.
Apparently there was a plan to tie this film in with the Underworld movies despite Bill Nighy playing a different character in the Underworld movies in exactly the same way he plays his character in this movie which would be fine, you could claim it was the same person in disguise or something except, obviously, he got his head sliced in two in Underworld so, you know, that probably wouldn’t work.
Anyway, they didn’t do it.
Again, none of this matters very much.
I, Frankenstein is the pits. I hated watching it.
the score:
each blu-ray gets a score: the amount of money I can sell the blu-ray for in pence (up to a maximum of a pound) multiplied or divided by its ‘suckiness score’. The suckiness scale is as follows: The film is amazing = x3, It is good enough to keep = x2, It is ok, but not good enough to keep = x1, It is quite bad = ÷2, It is very bad indeed = ÷4 = It is unforgivably bollocks ÷6, It is as bad as I, Frankenstein = ÷7, It is worse than I, Frankenstein = ÷8.
So, in this case 31 divided by 7 which equals 4.43.
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