★ ★ ½ ☆ ☆
James McAvoy and Daniel Radcliffe star in this empty but entertainingly
bonkers gothic bromance. We meet Igor (Radcliffe) as a lowly circus freak with
a penchant for medicine, rescued from a life of misery by the good doctor
Frankenstein (McAvoy) and hired to assist in the creation of the infamous
monster.
The McAvoy/Radcliffe combo is as gleeful as you expect, the
two of them obviously having a whale of a time bouncing off each other
(sometimes literally) with great bravado, whilst Andrew Scott as a god-fearing
police inspector grumbles and scowls somewhere in the background like someone
who never got invited to the cool kids’ party. Our only female character,
Lorelei (played by Downton Abbey alumna
Jessica Brown Findlay), is savagely underwritten and made almost un-necessary by
the narrative, somewhat marring the image of female empowerment stemming from
Mary Shelley’s success with the original book.
London streets, factories and lecture halls locations are suitably
grimy, smog-filled and dim, but the film as a whole is never in danger of
taking itself too seriously: it bristles with camp energy of the Hammer
variety, a healthy dose of grinding steampunk cogs and a little cameo from Mark
Gatiss thrown in on the off-chance the gothic milieu wasn’t obvious enough. The
body-horror beasties created in the lab are also a neat fusion of gooey
practical effects and a dash of CGI wizardry.
Though the film goes to great lengths to convince you
otherwise, we never actually learn anything new, deep or meaningful about the
character just by seeing him from Igor’s perspective, save for the idea that perhaps
Victor Frankenstein spent most of his time perfecting a Tim Curry impression. I
suppose the film is somewhat successful in making you remember the man instead
of the monster…but not quite for the reason it wants.
The film is scripted by Max Landis, author of this year’s American Ultra and a Fantastic Four script that never saw the
light of day. On the evidence of Victor Frankenstein,
I’m not entirely sure that Landis’ vision would have turned out much better
than Trank’s: more enjoyable, perhaps, but still with all the depth of a
teaspoon.
Yes, it’s ridiculous, yes it lets its own madcap attitude
get the better of it and of course, we really didn’t need a Frankenstein
origins story in the first place…but I won’t lie to you; the audience I sat
with had a riot. ‘Oh, what pish!’ cries McAvoy, spittle flying from his mile-wide
grin. Precisely!
