To say that "I, Frankentein" was a waste of time would be an
understatement. Much like "Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters," "I,
Frankenstein tries to re-invent a classic tale for the action audience
with little success. Though to be fair, "Witch Hunters" at least had
some moments of memorable silliness and creative set pieces. "I,
Frankenstein" has neither, nor does it present its audience with decent
writing or memorable thrills.
The plot itself is a mangled-up mess and a failed attempt to re-invent
Mary Shelly's classic character. In this film, Frankenstein's monster
(played by the seemingly disinterested Aaron Eckhart) somehow gets
involved in an ongoing battle with demons and gargoyles after the
events of the classic story. Everything from his backstory to the
motivations of the demons and gargoyles is told in rushed exposition
and gives absolutely no time for the audience to care about any of the
characters. It doesn't help that the editing and pacing is extremely
choppy, often skipping hours and years into the future with no
reasonable transition.
In the span of what feels like five minutes, the film tells
Frankenstein's backstory, introduces the demons and gargoyles, explains
their ongoing war, shows a training montage of Frankenstein learning to
use the gargoyle's weapons, and suddenly cuts from the 18th century to
present day. Nearly all of this is done in cheap narrated exposition
and it kills the possibility of the audience getting attached to the
characters.
Now, I'm sure many people can overlook a lackluster script if a movie
has "good action." Unfortunately, this movie fails in this department
too. All of the fight scenes are bland and dull with redundant, badly
executed CGI. Perhaps the most frustrating example of this is that
every time a demon is killed on screen, it turns into a swirling
fireball. This effect looked cool for about a minute and it quickly got
stale, especially when the demons are dying left and right and the
effects start to look like they've been copied and pasted.
The PG-13 rating also takes away the possibility of even a little gore
to entertain the horror buffs. This is especially a shame because there
are some very sleek and polished weapon designs that look like they
could have been used for some good ole hack-and-slash fun.
Little effort seems to have been put into this film, and even a
big-time star like Aaron Eckhart can't elevate the material. Here he
seems dazed and bored, almost as if this film was just a project to
waste some time. In fact, none of the actors seem interested, and with
the exception of maybe two awkward line readings, there is nothing to
laugh at either.
Like many films released in January, "I, Frankenstein," comes across as
filler and it is not even worth a view on Netflix streaming. Between
the poor script, the dull characters and the bad effects, there is next
to nothing here worth enjoying. After watching this, I actually
appreciated "Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters" more; at least it had
some effort put in it.
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