Twentieth Century Fox
The story of Frankenstein and his Monster has been told many times since the original book by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley was published in 1818. Thomas Edison made what is considered the first film version of the movie in 1910. Of course, the most famous of the Frankenstein movies is James Whale’s 1931 classic of the same name starring Boris Karloff as the Monster — not Frankenstein, which is the scientist’s name. Hammer Films made their version in the late 1950s with Christopher Lee getting his big break as the Monster.
Over the years the story has been retold, rebooted and re-imagined, and now we have the latest variation, Victor Frankenstein, which tells us the story of the young aspiring doctor and his obsession with bringing life from death. The new version of the story also re-tells the origin of Frankenstein’s hunchbacked assistant Igor.
In this version, Victor discovers Igor as a clown performing at a traveling circus. Igor, it seems, isn’t the simpleton we’ve come to know over the years (nor is that his name … more on that in a minute). He’s actually been teaching himself the art of medicine and anatomy, and serves as the company’s doctor. As fate would have it, a trapeze artist that the clown loves from afar has a serious accident the same night Victor is visiting. The clown thinks quickly and saves the girl from suffocating, impressing Victor enough to ask him to be his assistant for his experiments.
The circus owner claims the clown as his property, so Victor breaks him out of a cage with mayhem and death ensuing … although the story told by the circus is much different than actual events, something the local constable is keen to observe. But, there was a death (of whom we’re never told), so the police decide to pursue the case as one of murder. But it will be hard to find the suspect once he comes under Victor’s care.
A haircut, a back brace and the removal of the hump (which wasn’t a hump, but a pus-filled abscess) renders the clown unrecognizable to most, and he now sports the name Igor, the name of Frankenstein’s absent roommate. At a social event, Igor sees the former trapeze artists, Lorelei, and she realizes he is the clown who saved her life. Romance blossoms while Victor’s experiments continue. With Igor’s skills seemingly even more advanced than Victor’s, he asks Igor to be his partner as the two continue in their quest to give life to the wrongfully deceased.
There are successes and failures, and of course the madness of creating life consumes Victor and the inspector, a very devout man of God, who makes it his quest to put an end to Frankenstein and his demonic experiments. As Victor continues his desire to move from animals to a human, Igor realizes things have gone two far, and the police are moments away from breaking down the door to Victor’s home/laboratory. The two part ways, not amicably, but Igor knows he must stop Victor before more tragedy befalls him.
Victor Frankenstein is actually a much better movie than it should be, at least for the first two-thirds or so. I liked the new spin on Igor’s origin story (and how we find out what became of the real Igor), and Daniel Radcliffe gives the character a lot of compassion. While the movie is called Victor Frankenstein, it’s actually more about Igor’s journey. James McAvoy is also good as Victor, although he goes from zero to total madness in a pretty quick clip, literally spitting his lines at the other characters. Jessica Brown Findlay is a fetching Lorelei, and it’s easy to see why Igor is always so smitten with her. Surprisingly, the story never takes the cheap shot and kills her off so that Victor and Igor can bring her back to life. Andrew Scott is also quite good as the driven Inspector Turpin.
The film’s production design is gorgeous, mixing the settings of the era with some steampunk attributes in Frankenstein’s lab, and the cinematography keeps things glowing with a golden hue. It really is a lovely film to look at. There are also a few nods to Frankensteins past, most notably in the name of Victor’s brother, Henry (which was the name of Colin Clive’s Dr. Frankenstein in the 1931 movie), and when Lorelei derisively called Victor “Fronkenshteen” (wink, wink) even though Igor just introduced him to her by name. It’s also interesting that the film comes along at a period of time when the religious right seems to be constantly at war with anything scientific, which the film is almost a little to heavy-handed with, and Victor certainly revels in throwing his own God complex in Turpin’s face.
Where things go wrong is towards the end as Victor forges on with creating his Modern Prometheus (which is actually the subtitle of the original book). The movie spends so much time building to this moment that there’s not enough time to do this part of the story justice and it rushes to an unsatisfying conclusion. The other puzzling question about the movie is whose brilliant idea was it to release this for the Thanksgiving holiday here in the US? Why not in October before Halloween? The poor timing shows that Twentieth Century Fox has little faith in the film, but they’ve done it an injustice. Is it great? By no means, but it is entertaining and it’s good to see Radcliffe venture further away from Harry Potter, while McAvoy chews on every piece of scenery in sight. What more could you ask for?
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