Frankenstein [2025] plus Short Takes on some other cinematic topics
It’s Alive … Once Again
Reviews and Comments by Ken Burke
I invite you to join me on a regular basis to see how my responses to current cinematic offerings compare to the critical establishment, which I’ll refer to as either the CCAL (Collective Critics at Large) if they’re supportive or the OCCU (Often Cranky Critics Universe) when they go negative. However, due to COVID concerns I’m mostly addressing streaming options with limited visits to theaters, where I don’t think I’ve missed much anyway, though better options may be coming soon. (Note: Anything in bold blue [or near purple] is a link to something in the above title or the review.)
My reviews’ premise: “You can’t please everyone, so you got to please yourself.”
(from "Garden Party" by Rick Nelson and the Stone Canyon Band, 1972 album of the song’s name)
However, if you’d like to know more about rationale of my ratings visit this explanatory site.
Here’s the trailer:
(Use the full screen button in the image’s lower right to enlarge its size;
activate the same button or use “esc” keyboard key to return to normal.)
If you can abide plot spoilers read on, but this blog’s intended for those who’ve seen the film or want to save some $ (as well as recognizing those readers like me who just aren’t that tech-savvy). To help any of you who want to learn more details yet avoid these all-important plot-reveals I’ll identify any give-away sentences/sentence-clusters with colors plus arrows:
⇒The first and last words will be noted with arrows and red.⇐ OK, now continue on if you prefer.
WHAT HAPPENS: We begin in 1857 as the Danish ship Horisont, under the command of Captain Anderson (Lars Mikkelsen) was headed for the North Pole, got stuck in Arctic ice. Injured Baron Victor Frankenstein (Oscar Isaac)—pursued by a hulking figure (Jacob Elordi) who eventually jumps under the ice—is taken aboard the ship, explains he’s this Creature’s creator, gives his backstory. His father was a demanding surgeon who expected his son to follow in his path; sadly, his mother died in childbirth of his brother, William (Felix Kammerer as an adult), leaving Victor to vow he’d find a means to defy death. As adults, William went to Vienna with Victor enrolling in the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh where he’s sent away after a demonstration of partially reviving a corpse (“Obscene!”). However, rich arms merchant Henrich Harlander (Christoph Waltz) agrees to fund Victor leading to an elaborate lab built in an abandoned tower. Victor constructs a new human made from parts of hanged men and dead soldiers from the Crimean War, with a plan to reanimate this collaged-body with the power of lightening when he learns Harlander is dying of syphilis, wants to be put into the body, but Victor refuses. They struggle; Harlander falls to his death.
When lightening strikes the Creature (hereafter simply called C.) it fails to come to life leaving Victor despondent which changes the next morning as C.’s now alert. Victor chains it (he refuses to say “he”) in the building’s basement, frustrated the only word C. will say is “Victor.” (Is C. responding to his creator as a father-figure or is it referring to itself as well, taking on the name?) William and his fiancée, Elizabeth (Mia Goth), niece of Harlander, come to visit, with the woman oddly sympathetic to C., even as Victor lies that C. killed her uncle. They leave as Victor, further upset with Elizabeth’s fondness for C. even as she rejects his own improper advances, sets fire to the tower, hoping to kill C. (at this point he doesn’t realize C.’s resiliency as it revives from any attack), is injured himself. Back on the ship C.’s aboard, tells his own story of how he escaped the fire, hid in a forest shack, learned to read and speak listening to the family’s parents teach their little girl. ⇒Eventually, C. makes his way to William and Elizabeth’s wedding, demands Victor make him a female companion, Victor refuses, a melee occurs (C. kills William), Victor tries to shoot C. though he hits Elizabeth instead, C. takes her away to die, vows ongoing misery for Victor. Back to the present on the ship C. and Victor reconcile, Victor dies, C.—with amazing strength—pushes the ship loose to sail home, goes away in search of meaning in his (eternal?) life.⇐ (To see more plot details, please go here.)
SO WHAT? Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley’s seminal 1818 novel, Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus, has inspired an astounding number of adaptions—or, at least, allusions—in cinematic form, 423 features according to this site, dating back to Joseph W. Smiley’s Life Without Soul (1915) with early screen fame coming from Universal Pictures’ Frankenstein (James Whale, 1931), then expanding “monstrously” into the present (although this site stops in 2024, doesn’t include del Toro’s current version), so my naïve belief that I had seen many of the stories dealing with Victor (called Henry in those early Universal movies) the doctor and/or some version of his created Creature was soon put to rest as I’ve barely scratched the surface of how especially the Creature (sometimes referred to as Adam in the movies, maybe in the novel too as I forget) has been portrayed on-screen.
However, of the various ones I have seen over the years 3 are special favorites of mine: (1) Bride of Frankenstein (Whale, 1935)—sequel to the 1931 original—due to its mixture of humor and horror, with repeat performances from Colin Clive as the doctor, Boris Karloff as the Creature, and the inspired casting of Elsa Lanchester as Mary Shelley in the opening scene as well as the female Creature created by Henry and the truly-mad archfiend, Dr. Pretorius (Ernest Thesiger);* (2) Young Frankenstein (Mel Brooks, 1974) a marvelous parody of those first 3 Universal monster movies (including Son of Frankenstein [Rowland V. Lee, 1939]) with Gene Wilder as the grandson of the original doctor, Peter Boyle as the new Creature, and marvelous supporting work from Marty Feldman, Cloris Leachman, Madeline Kahn, Teri Garr, Kenneth Mars, but especially Gene Hackman as the blind hermit; (3) Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (Kenneth Branagh, 1994) with Branagh as the doctor, Robert De Niro as the Creature as this version steers quite close to that long-ago novel but with one strange addition that seems to be borrowed from Bride of Frankenstein as the Creature does kill Elizabeth (Helena Bonham Carter), inspiring the doctor to reanimate her, leaving her new existence in a connection-quandary between her known-human fiancée and a reconstructed being now more like her so she solves her dilemma by setting herself on fire, then dying for a second time.
*This movie must take its share of the “credit”/blame for the ongoing confusion in popular culture between the name of the doctor who reanimates the Creature and the imposing Creature itself with so many wrong uses of “Frankenstein” to refer to the Creature rather than the doctor. Not only do we have the title of this 1935 movie implying a mate for the Creature but also when she’s first mobile Pretorius refers to her as “the bride of Frankenstein,” clearly an intended companion for the male Creature (yet she rejects him), not any sort of reference to Henry’s wife, Elizabeth (Valerie Hobson).
This new film by del Toro also is generally well-connected to the original novel, except for 15 notable differences that do change the tone and intentions of the work, as explored well in this thoughtful short video (17:06 [ads interrupt at 5:08, 11:23]).** Now, if you’ve waded through all of these citations I’ve presented and still want a bit more here’s a link to a cluster of some interesting explorations of Frankenstein-related commentary by The New York Times’ Maya Salam. Yet, after all that, what am I left with in regard to this latest interpretation of Shelley’s work by del Toro? First I must say the acting by Isaac, Elordi, Goth, and Waltz especially is first-rate, making it clear the real horror here is Victor’s misguided ambition which leads him to undermine the established intentions of God/nature (take your pick), then reject his creation not only because he initially doesn’t find it to have sufficient intellect but also due to his jealous rage that the Creature is more connected to Elizabeth than to him (even though he’s tried unsuccessfully to poach her from his younger brother).
**The one “difference” presented here (Spoiler alert, though if you know the basic aspects of this narrative you’d already be aware of what I’m about to say) is the Creature in this new film doesn’t ask Victor to make a companion for him, even though he does ask, with Victor’s refusal leading to C.’s disruption of William and Elizabeth’s wedding. I’m just confused by this video's obvious mistake.
True, the Creature is dangerous when provoked (although, as that video points out, he doesn’t kill certain characters from the novel, but he quickly disposes of Horisont crew members who attempt to keep him from confronting Victor), but he’s full of sorrow more than rage due to his constant rejections from virtually all of humanity—except Elizabeth—so there’s a touching sense of heartbreak here successfully reminding me of aspects of the Branagh version. Further, based on del Toro’s previous work I think you’d find it no surprise both the set designs and cinematography are excellent. Even if you’d find some reluctance about aspects of the presentation of the characters I think you’d enjoy just looking at this film’s cinematic beauty (OK, maybe not for a full 2½ hours—just as San Francisco Chronicle’s Mick LaSalle says you could miss the first half of this film with no regrets—so if you want to skip around until you get to the Creature’s tale you’d still have a lot of visual wonder to explore). This is not a Halloween tale about a ruthless monster on the rampage; instead, it’s a more heartfelt exploration of need, desire, rationalized revenge that’s always been (even if buried beneath the surface) at the heart of the best renderings of Shelley’s clever concepts.
BOTTOM LINE FINAL COMMENTS: This most-recent Frankenstein opened in select domestic (U.S.-Canada) theaters on October 17, 2025, but as usual from this distributor I have little info on whether it’s still available on the big screen or how much box-office gross it might have made (although there’s an international estimate of $144.5 thousand), so to easily find it you can turn to Netflix streaming where it’s free to subscribers ($17.99 monthly if you want the no-ads version, $7.99 with ads), where you’re encouraged by the CCAL to view it with the Rotten Tomatoes positive reviews at a healthy 86%, the Metacritic average score at a supportive (for them) 78%. Among the supporters is David Rooney of The Hollywood Reporter: “The quote from Byron with which del Toro closes the film — ‘And thus the heart will break and yet brokenly live on’ — clearly indicates the director’s vision of Frankenstein as an operatic Romantic tragedy. ‘I cannot die. And I cannot live alone,’ the Creature tells Victor during a fateful confrontation. Elordi’s dark, soulful eyes convey a piercing sadness not felt from this character since Boris Karloff’s haunted work in the Whale films, which made him one of the screen forefathers of the pitiable monster.” (At MC, 100%.)
Inevitably, though, others will see it differently as with Kevin Maher of The Times (London), MC 60%: “Hats off to three-time Oscar-winner Guillermo del Toro (Pan’s Labyrinth, The Shape of Water). He certainly set the bar high when he announced, midway through the 25-year gestation of this passion project, that he wanted to make nothing less than ‘the greatest Frankenstein ever!’ […] It looks nice, as if Mary Shelley’s source material had been reimagined as a lavish graphic novel, complete with poster-worthy frame composition and stark, shadow-filled close-ups. But the performances are all camp and no soul, the ideas barely there and the centrepiece creature consistently underwhelming.” Clearly, I don’t agree with this response, but you might if you’re willing to invest yourself in this film. A possibly easier investment is in my usual ending bit of a Musical Metaphor, this time “I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel to Be Free” (written by Billy Taylor in the early 1960s) here sung by Nina Simone (recorded version on her 1967 Silk & Soul album), a dynamically live version at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzEDYoE7YQ4&list=RDSzEDYoE7YQ4& start_radio=1, though you might have trouble hearing the lyrics that drew me to this song such as “I wish I knew how it would feel to be free / I wish I could break all the chains holding me / I wish I could say all the things that I should say […] I wish I could give all I’m longing to give / I wish I could live like I’m longing to live […] Oh, I’d know how it feels / How it feels to be free” so for clarity here’s the recorded version of a Civil Rights anthem I find relevant as well to this concept of Frankenstein.
SHORT TAKES
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