Frankenstein (2025)
Director: Guillermo del Toro
Starring: Oscar Isaac, Jacob Elordi, Christoph Waltz
Synopsis:
A Danish expedition to the Arctic Circle comes across a man on the verge of death and a monster he claims to have created.
Impressions:
Like many other people, my interest was piqued when I heard Guillermo del Toro was doing an adaptation of Frankenstein. His particular sensibilities both visually and narratively stood to be a good match. This stands to be compared to Kenneth Branagh's '94 adaptation of the story. In particular, I was amused to see Oscar Isaac making a genuine effort to out-ham Branagh himself as the eponymous Frankenstein. This is a rather loose adaptation of the source material and I don't consider most of the changes to be for the better. Some of the thematic elements are intriguing, such as the father-son dynamic, but don't feel quite fully developed. Elizabeth seemed poorly done as well. I didn't really like the character and what they seemed to be going with came off as half-baked. Jacob Elordi did a good job as the Creature, but especially in his initial form, he really didn't seem all that monstrous. It reminds me a bit of the movie Beastly, where the Beast in a Beauty and the Beast story is just a guy with some tattoos and scars. Perhaps the design was a deliberate choice to be ironic. You have this creation near-perfect in form and essence unjustly rejected as a monster. If that was the intention, it too didn't seem quite fully developed. The first half is stronger than the second but that may largely be due to Oscar Isaac being rather entertaining as Frankenstein in full manic mode. All told, this is a mixed bag but still one I would recommend watching. Making a double feature with the '94 version could be fun.
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