Victor Frankenstein
Director: Paul McGuigan. (12a)
Synopsis
A re-telling of Mary Shelley’s classic, early science fiction novel. Young medical student Victor Frankenstein (McAvoy) rescues a deformed and abused circus clown (Radcliffe) from a vicious circus gang after recognising his keen medical skills and excellent, self-taught anatomical knowledge.
Christened Igor, the story of how Frankenstein’s dangerous experiments with dead bodies finally culminates in him creating a super human, is told through his eyes.
Review by Jason Day
Mary Shelley's classic story about bonkers, God-annoying doctors, monsters on the loose and (aggravatingly) an arctic explorer relating this tale of woe to his sister back in old Blighty has been adapted to within an inch of its pages for so long, writers and TV/movie producers can 9and have) done pretty much whatever they want with it.
Frankenstein and his monster have been tortured souls in an expressionistically designed classic (1931, for James Whale), incipient homosexual, narcissistic lovers (for Jack Smight, 1974), knockabout comics (for Mel Brooks, also 1974) and, even worse, tools for Kenneth Branagh to flex his directorial muscles (1994, almost as funny as Brooks' film).
Here, the contention is that the crippled sidekick (Daniel Radcliffe) is the medical man, a self-taught anatomical and diagnostic genius, with Doctor Frankenstein (James McAvoy) almost second fiddle as the scientific brains of the body-snatching operation.
This is as silly and overblown a movie as you can get, all mouth and no period trousers, but there is the odd classic drollery that escapes the script and there are neat dissections of human behaviour and psychology throughout that can be enjoyed by the smart eared and clear eyed.
Radcliffe might have been better off if Igor had been left as deranged and disabled, a la Dwight Frye, as he would have had more freedom to ham it up like McAvoy whose brawling, drunken, loud mouth Victor blows the cobwebs away from this rather standard piece.
This is a new Victor Frankenstein - the Red Bull Swilling Action Hero.
For full review: http://ow.ly/VvGv2
For screening times for this and other films at Cineworld Milton Keynes: http://www.cineworld.co.uk/cinemas/milton-keynes/
Cast & crew
Producer: John Davis. Writer: Max Landis. Camera: Fabian Wagner. Music: Craig Armstrong. Sets: Eve Stewart.
Daniel Radcliffe, James McAvoy, Jessica Brown Findlay, Freddie Fox, Andrew Scott, Callum Turner, Daniel Mays, Charles Dance, Mark Gattis.
