Frankenstein

It is a shame to say that this was an utter disappointment. I truly wanted to love this film, as I'm a big fan of Frankenstein and gothic literature in general. I put a lot of faith into del Toro into making something that would capture the soul of the novel. It sadly did not. Though it is for the most part visually gorgeous, it feels empty of substance. Del Toro obviously understood the point of Victor Frankenstein himself being the 'monster'. But it feels like he spent most of his time hammering that in, and making sure that even a distracted Netflix audience member would understand that point, and with that removing any subtlety of the story. Any agency that the creature has is gone. In the novel the creature is a vengeful being that destroys everything Frankenstein loves in revenge, Frankenstein indirectly destroying everything he loves by doing everything he can to play God, without thinking of the consequences. However in this film, most of the deaths are directly Frankenstein's fault, the creature being little more than a spectator in his self destruction. I understand that del Toro wanted to put focus on the sympathetic side of the creature, but by ignoring the vengeful side, it removes the dimensions the creature had and the character becomes very uninteresting when comparing him with his novel counterpart. Elordi in this was great, Isaac was also good for the most part, though he felt a big hammy sometimes. The rest though feels disappointing, part of it is the writing of all the other characters just being, somewhat bland though, I don't think there was a lot to work with. Though I was admittedly especially disappointed with Goth's performance, who I normally love. Then when the beautiful disappointed ended, it delivers a stab in the guy, by ending with a quote, not by the masterful author that wrote the source material, but one by a man who already gets significantly more credit for her masterpiece than he deserves. I suppose, on a surface level this movie is the most accurate Frankenstein adaptation we've ever gotten. But that just makes it so much more disappointing that the film seems to fundamentally misunderstand, or at least misrepresent the heart of the story. Perhaps my biggest disappointment of the year, I truly wanted to love this.