Gods and Monsters

If you can only have 2 great elements in a film let them be performances & script. Fraser's a real surprise & he & McKellen convey a great deal of emotion in the most subtle ways. Script wise it's brilliant to make Whale a scamp; & never have I seen such organic & plausible reasons for 2 wildly different people to spend so much time together. Only 1 part rang as contrived for melodrama to me: how Whale "attacks" Fraser at the end & his reason for doing what he does. Surely he had some friends?

Tries to deal with a bit too much at once; death, the movie industry, homosexuality, insanity, war, and god knows what. Still though, it does it quite well even if it isn't long enough to do all the aspects justice. And my god, McKellen is ridiculously good. Great.

Not a brilliant film, but Sir Ian McKellen's performance is brilliant - and Brendan Fraser is surprisingly good as well...

It was pretty decent. Not the best biopic I've seen, but it was interesting enough. McKellen was absolutely brilliant. This must be one of his best roles. Watching him play a famous filmmaker and being asked about his past work definitely made me think of when I met Sir Ian recently. Also, I never miss the opportunity to brag about that. Fraser, however, was pretty awful, I thought.

A biopic that works hard to escape genre formula and mostly succeeds. There's a lot of ground covered here -the script touches on the rough aspects of growing old, celebrity, homosexuality and war and does so with grace and gentle poignancy. A sublime McKellen carries the film, Fraser is pretty adequate, Redgrave is transformed, Condon's helming is subtly stylish and every time the film opted for hallucinatory flashbacks instead of exposition to flesh out backstory it gained a couple of points.

The typical hollywood shlock that goes a step farther in turning a director I admire into a walking cliche. It's really not so bad but Brendan Fraser ruins everything and this movie makes it very clear what its agenda is, and its not James Whale.

McKellen is simply masterful in this. And so is the screenplay.

McKellen fully earns his Best Actor Academy Award nomination. Condon, who won a well-deserved Best Screenplay Adaptation Oscar for his work here, seamlessly weaves Whale's real and reel lives, past and present, into a moving tapestry laced with wry wit. Best Supporting Actress nominee Redgrave is sheer brilliance as Whale's loyal Eastern European housekeeper/surrogate mother.

Interesting and held my attention. A little ... empty in places.

An affectionate, quiet rendering of an elderly man in cognitive decline. McKellen will always be remembered for his bombastic blockbusters like LOTR and X-Men, but he really should've won every award in sight for this portrayal.

Great performances. So Brendan Fraser can actuallly do better than the Mummy-stuff.

Great chemistry between McKellen & Fraser.

McKellen and Fraser are both wonderful in this superbly directed drama.

As Ebert said, sometimes you just see the right movie at the right point in your life. This was one of them for me. It shows a friendship that transcends (though not easily) generations, desires and social class. It's also a heartbreaking story of a creative genius who is literally losing his mind.

Excellent film with great parts played by Lynn Redgrave and the amazing Ian Mckellen.

I like this quite a bit.

Ian McKellen's greatest performance to date. Absolutely riveting portrayal of a man ahead of his time, yet haunted by the past.

McKellen is fantastic, BF is terrible, the focus is too blatantly on Whale's sexuality rather than the man and his works.

McKellen is excellent and Fraser is acceptable in this well written biopic.

The acting of the cast alone already raised the bar of this movie to realistic standards. Add to it the vibrant portrayal of personality aberrations unique to each actor completed the human drama that made the story gripping and fascinating. MY SCORING: 99-96=Great; 95-90=Very good; 89-85=Good; 84-80=So-so; 79-70=Boring; Below 70=Forget it

McKellen gives a fine performance as director James Whale.

Ian McKellen in one of the screen's greatest performances. An absolute delight to look at as well.

A-

Drivel.

A biopic of director James Whale that isn't the most exciting or interesting film, but is elevated by a great performance by Ian McKellen and a surprisingly solid performance by Fraser opposite him.

Excellent performances and an uncommon life story combine to make an almost-great biopic.

Certainly well made and a wonderful performance from McKellen back before he exploded into the mainstream as Gandalf. This tale of the ageing filmmaker and the relationship he manipulates with his gardener held my interest but not much else.

Gods and Monsters is a spellbinding, confusing piece of semi-fiction, featuring fine performances; McKellen leads the way, but Redgrave and Fraser don't lag far behind.

86.000

A film about the last days of the great filmmaker James Whale, who is most famous for directing "Frankenstein" and it's (superior) sequel "The Bride of Frankenstein". Ian McKellen is marvelous as James Whale; it feels very personal and it's very easy to lose sight of the great actor and see only Whale himself.

Actually better than the new Star Wars movie, and confusing, in part, as to pourpose & function. I suppose the acting is so good & characters are interesting enough to carry the picture without any clear plot.

Absolutely great little story. Ian McKellen was robbed like nobody's business. The performance of a lifetime.

Ian McKellen is the only above average aspect of this seemingly overrated and boring movie. Gets a higher rating since its about James Whale.

I guess this is a good movie - I was too busy being bored by it.

85.250

I'm surprised this movie didn't win more critical acclaim. Ian McKellen is terrific

Ian Mckellan is tremendously real as James Whale. Brendan Fraser also gives a surprisingly wonderful performance. The cinematography has a very eerie and classic feel to it, which I loved.

I dislike the tacked on "Look, he didn't end up gay!" ending but otherwise this is a nicely drawn character study and insight into Hollywood's past. Might make a good double feature with "Ed Wood"

So many topics are tackled here that none of them seem to get our full attention. McKellen is great, but little else is above mediocre.

It actually turns into something mildly interesting and complex, which warrants mercy considering the first hour or so.