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Review by E.C. McMullen Jr. |
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Mary Shelley's FRANKENSTEIN- 1994USA Release: Nov 4, 1994 American Zoetrope, IndieProd Company Productions, Japan Satellite Broadcasting (JBS), TriStar Pictures Rated: USA: R |
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Hot off of the success of his interpretation of Bram Stoker's DRACULA, Francis Ford Coppola was ready to attack another icon of Horror - Mary Shelley's FRANKENSTEIN.
Now the thing that both Science Fiction fans and Horror fans know is this: Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley's FRANKENSTEIN (aka PROMETHEUS UNBOUND) was not only the first Science Fiction novel ever published, it was also the first Horror novel ever published*. And young Mary was dead serious about getting the science right. So much so that, when it was time to novelize her original newspaper serial, she began an extensive correspondence with the most famous young scientist of her era, Dr. Charles Darwin - yes, THAT Darwin.
Unfortunately, Science always gets short shrift in Hollywood unless it is being used to advance someone's political agenda, their new business, or both. In their long history of SF movies, which hasn't changed to this day, or in this movie, Hollywood film makers seemingly despise Science and Science Fiction: Something that most science and SciFi fans talk about to some great length on their websites. It is not for nothing that the SciFi Channel has always chose to fill their schedules with the Supernatural and "Evil Science" movies over anything else.
In Mary Shelley's FRANKENSTEIN, as produced, directed, and acted by Kenneth Branaugh (DEAD AGAIN, HARRY POTTER AND THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS), there are just some things that man is not meant to know! The movie begins with an opening passage that doesn't exist in Mary Shelley's FRANKENSTEIN about how, in the 18th Century, Science is taking over (the novel takes place in the 19th Century).
The movie begins with composer Patrick Doyle (HARRY POTTER AND THE GOBLET OF FIRE) and his sweeping vistas of great musical import!
Stormy Night! Stormy Orchestral tones!
One man, a Captain Robert Walton (Aidan Quinn: IN DREAMS) is "obsessed with science and discovery". So much so that he plans to discover the North pole, by ship, even if it kills his crew.
"Then you run the risk of mutiny!" his first mate says.
Walton cares not, "We will chop our way to the North Pole if that's what it takes!"
"The loss of how many more lives?" The First mate asks.
"As many as it takes!" growls the preposterously heartless scientist/discoverer.
Now, imagine that you decide to drive your car to the North Pole.
"And if there is no fuel in your car?" someone asks. Why, you'll do it anyway!
Such is the Entertainer's mindset regarding "scary" science. Why, it's EVIL!^
Here's the thing about this idiot "Scientist" Captain,
!!!SCIENCE MOMENT!!!:
(No, let's wait, because it gets worse)
So the movie gets off to a brilliant start, right?
Just as the Captain and his first mate are about to lock horns over the whole Mutiny issue, the music gets all excited and trilling (not thrilling, but trilling)!
Along comes a guy from across the frozen wastes (the ship is also stuck in the ice). He is bedraggled and disheveled but at least he has gone to great pains to trim his beard and mustache. His name is Victor Frankenstein (Kenneth Branaugh) and, Hoo boy!, does HE ever have a story to tell!
And Captain Walton, ready to put his crew to the point of his sword, can't wait to drop everything, as his ship is noisily crushed by ice and sinking, to hang on Victor's every word!
According to Victor he,
Happy Orchestral tones!
Is a young boy playing with his Mom when he is introduced to the orphan Elizabeth, his future fiance.
In a snap he is a young man and his Mom is pregnant.
Tragic Orchestral tones!
Mom dies in childbirth!
His Father (Ian Holm: ALIEN, eXistenZ, THE FIFTH ELEMENT, THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE RINGS, THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE RETURN OF THE KING, THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW) a doctor, delivers babies while shirtless (in this movie for reasons never explained, 19th Century Swiss doctors will not practice medicine unless bare-chested! Truthfully, I did not know that about 19th Century Swiss medicine!) and there are a few seconds of sorrow.
Happy Orchestral tones!
Three years later, Victor is about to go off to medical school. Shame about Mum, but anyway, Victor is now in love with the grown-up version of Elizabeth (Helena Bonham Carter: PLANET OF THE APES [2001], CORPSE BRIDE, WALLACE & GROMIT AND THE CURSE OF THE WERE-RABBIT).
Happy Orchestral tones!
The whole town turns out to greet and cheer for yet another medical student's arrival, that of Victor Frankenstein, who otherwise seems to be a nobody. But small town life is dull and the peasants will make any excuse to have a celebration. In this case, they appear to be celebrating some stranger's arrival by horse.
Tragic Orchestral tones!
Off at school, not content to ask questions pertaining to his studies, Victor openly challenges the very foundations of his teacher's knowledge, asking why poetry, the occult, and philosophy are not part of the scientific method (or, for that matter, creationism and a God-based religion?).
Pardon me a moment as I stop writing this review so that I may bang my head against my desk at the unabashed stupidity of this movie.
Whew! Okay now.
These are things Mary didn't write about in her book. This is all the nutball fluff of writers Frank Darabont (A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 3, THE BLOB [1988], THE FLY II, THE GREEN MILE) and Steph Lady (I do not know) with lots of Producer/Director meddling from Kenneth. Victor's professor, a cartoonish Richard Dawkins type iconoclast, is stunned at Victor's irrationality (who wouldn't be?).
Swelling Happy Orchestral tones!
Okay, NOW let's have a
!!!SCIENCE MOMENT!!!:
Frankenstein or The Modern Prometheus, was completed in 1818. That was the year that Sir John Ross was the first to try and find a Northwest passage through the Arctic. At that time, no one was sure that the icecap didn't sit on land, though many were reasonably sure, but for unscientific reasons.
Continued at the Science Moment/1990s/Frankenstein.
Victor's outburst earns him a friend among the furtive faculty who stand in shadows: One Professor Waldman (John Cleese: HARRY POTTER AND THE SORCERER'S STONE, HARRY POTTER AND THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS). He takes young Frankenstein and his friend, Henry Clerval (Tom Hulce: SLAM DANCE, BLACK RAINBOW) under his wing.
TRIVIA * Actor Ian Holm once played Frankenstein's monster in the 1968 TV series, Mystery and Imagination. ^ Producer Francis Ford Coppola intended to direct FRANKENSTEIN as a companion to his movie, DRACULA, but then hired Kenneth Branaugh to direct instead. During filming, Coppola was appalled at Branaugh's changes and, after several fruitless conversations with Kenneth, Francis publicly denounced this movie. Screenwriter Frank Darabont feels that Kenneth "mishandled" the movie (Kenneth did several uncredited rewrites to the script). As if the production wasn't in enough turmoil, the married Branaugh fell in love with his lead actor, Helena Bonham Carter. Kenneth actually thought Kate Winslet was better for the part than Carter, except while Winslet was winsome (at 16), he wasn't all Kiss Me Kate in love with her. So he offered Kate the lead in his next scheduled movie, Hamlet. Why Hamlet and not Frankenstein? Get real! Hamlet isn't some SciFi Horror trash from a Roger Corman acolyte! Kenneth was Writer, Director, and Actor on a stage serious and scholarly Shakespearean HAMLET! It was his vanity project, so it HAD to be a hit. He wasn't about to let love or lust screw around with that! Bear in mind that Kenneth was in his 30s while behaving like a lovestruck teenybopper. Sheesh! There's more FRANKENSTEIN Trivia at IMDb. |
Waldman shows the boys his secret experiments -
Happy Orchestral tones!
Which go abruptly wrong -
Tragic Orchestral tones!
Then self-correct and succeed -
Happy Orchestral tones!
Which gives us a lesson in the awful dangers of science. You shouldn't monkey with it. Or even Orangutan with it.
Soon Victor is even making his mentor jumpy and before you know it, Waldman is dead.
Tragic Orchestral tones!
Waldman's murderer is quickly hanged. Victor steals Waldman's brain -
Swelling Happy Orchestral tones!
Elizabeth, back home, wonders what Victor is up to these last few months and goes to confront him and his possible new lover.
Tragic Orchestral tones!
Victor sees her and tells her to get lost.
Sturm und Drang Orchestral tones!
His creation is slapped together within a matter of filmic seconds and, with the help of some electric eels (bloody f'n hell to this shit!), Victor gives his creation ... life!
Swelling Happy Orchestral tones!
- seems to abruptly fail -
Tragic Orchestral tones!
- No, no! Appears to self-correct and succeed -
Swelling Happy Orchestral tones!
- uh... but not quite -
Tragic Orchestral tones!
- but wait, yes. Yes! Definite success! -
Happy Orchestral tones!
- then Victor accidentally kills his creation -
Tragic Orchestral tones!
- blames it on the dead creature (stupid creature!)
Tragic Orchestral tones!
- and, within minutes of the whole sh-bang, loses interest in it all to sit and ponder about how on earth Elizabeth is getting on without him.
Tragic Orchestral tones!
He looks at his living quarters and realizes what a mess they are (needs a woman's touch).
Tragic Orchestral tones!
He looks at himself in the mirror and notices that, no matter how he's let everything else in his life go to hell, he keeps his beard and 'stache well-trimmed.
Tragic Orchestral tones!
The people of the town where Victor lives are dying of some plague. Henry begs Victor to leave. Victor won't hear of it (Whatta self-sacrificing hero!).
Sturm und Drang!
Not that Victor cares about the dying townsfolk, he has his own problems. That beard and 'stache won't trim themselves (Whatta DICK!).
Victor goes crazy, gets sick (he should have kept a warm shirt on while making his creation),
Blah, blah, blah.
- gets saved by his friend Henry and Elizabeth and decides to make a fresh start of it: Starting with a fresh shirt.
Swelling Happy Orchestral tones!
His creation (Robert De Niro: ANGEL HEART, BRAZIL, CAPE FEAR, GODSEND, HIDE AND SEEK), isn't dead after all, lives in an alley, gets chased by a mob and decides to take his problems on the road.
Tragic Orchestral tones!
- And well, that pretty much wraps up the first hour. Then we have another hour and three minutes left to go. You'd think there'd be a greater amount of time set aside for character development, but make no mistake - when Branaugh's FRANKENSTEIN isn't zig-zagging between manipulative maudlin tragedy and manipulative maudlin emotion, it's attacking the very scientific method that Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley loved so well and her novel's science advisor, Charles Darwin, worked so hard, as her mentor, to impress upon her.
I don't know whose benighted FRANKENSTEIN this pathetic mess was supposed to be, but don't blame Mary or Charlie for it.
Two Shriek Girls.
This review copyright 2007 E.C.McMullen Jr.
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