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Rating: 1 out of 5
I don’t know about you, but this film shouldn’t have been called Victor Frankenstein. It should’ve been called “Igor: The Life and Story.” Now would that have made a difference in the overall fill and review of this film? NOPE! This movie is absolutely terrible, but at least I would’ve had a decent idea of what to expect. The movie is more about the life of Frankenstein’s hunchback assistant Igor than himself.
I am going to put this out there right now. Can you think of a decent Frankenstein movie ever since the original came out? It is getting harder and harder to find a reason to watch a Frankenstein movie. I, Frankenstein was terrible. Van Helsing starring Hugh Jackman, was blah and had the movie monster. There were a few throughout the years, and each one seems meh. I guess the TV show Penny Dreadful did a good job, but it just seems that Frankenstein’s monster is not that great, or they try to change the story over and over again.
Well, this film is more about Igor and his relationship with the mad scientist Victor Frankenstein. Now, I am not going to lie to you, I was a little intrigued when I saw this movie. It was starring James McAvoy as Dr. Frankenstein and Mr. Harry Potter himself, Daniel Radcliff as Igor. How bad could it actually be? Actually, it was pretty bad. From the get-go, it was strange. Igor in this film wasn’t the strange character that we known today. Well, he is still weird but misunderstood. We see him first working in a circus as a clown stagehand, but he is actually a medical genius. He knows more about human anatomy than almost the best doctors. How did he get this knowledge? The dude studied his ass off by books and probably trial and error. The film never states it, but his memory of the human body is insane. During the time in the circus, he has no name. He is just around and walks around with a hunchback. Like all monster films, the dude is in love with circus aerialist Lorelei.
Well, life changes when Victor attends a show at the circus. During the performance, Lorelei falls to the ground while doing a stunt. Victor rushes to help her and notices she has a broken collarbone and will die ultimately. Igor showing his excellent knowledge of the body, thinks of a way to save Lorelei’s life. During this showing, Victor becomes very intrigued at Igor and asks for him to come with him. The circus owner doesn’t like this, traps Igor in a cage which Victor rescues him, and then begins the overall adventure. Oh, and before I forget, Igor is the name of Victor’s dead roommate. Igor just takes the name for himself.
OKAY! So, where do I begin with this film? I guess we shall talk about the story. It was so bad that maybe Igor should change his name and call himself Gregor or something else. It tried to be an action movie, but it wasn’t, and then it threw in Frankenstein’s creation with some school drama. It was a mess of a film. First, we have always known Igor as the hunchback assistant. He is a hunchback, but it can be fixed, as the movie states and does. His hunchback is a very, very, very large cyst that caused his physical abnormality. Victor drains the cyst in the nastiest way and then wraps a harness around him to improve his posture. After homeboy takes a bath and cuts his hair, he goes from a nobody to somebody that grew a foot taller. Now, I have no issue with this, but it completely threw out what we knew about Igor.
The biggest issue with this whole movie is who it is about. The title states Victor Frankenstein, but it primarily follows Igor around. We see life through Igor’s point of view and his feelings towards Lorelei. We also see how he helped with all the experiments that Frankenstein wanted to do. Now that I think about it, he was the one that did all the work along with connecting the body parts of the monkey. He did all this before the doctor gets the bright idea to do human experimentation. It was Igor as the voice of reason that Victor ignored time and time again, even when the rich son wanted to do stuff. Once again, it was a mess.
The whole experiment and Frankenstein’s monster scene was so rushed that I don’t even know why it was even in the movie. The whole action/I need to do what is right scene was about a grand total of seven minutes long. The monster is created, then the monster is killed, and Victor somewhat learns from his mistakes. In seven minutes, you made the whole creation scene so laughable that I might as well watch water boil because it would’ve been more entertaining.
Daniel Radcliff tried to make it entertaining. He still has that Harry Potter feel to him where he is skittish and nervous. Take hold of the role and do the damn thing but thinking about this film, maybe he saw the writing on the wall and was like, “Naw, I’m good.” McAvoy, I need to ask if you decided to just not give a damn. I know you’re a great actor, but what is this. You starting to do the same character and role over and over again. You are better than this.
Victor Frankenstein is a very forgettable film that almost has nothing to do with horror and a little bit with the iconic monster. This film, once again, should’ve been called “Igor: The Life and Times.” This film was more about Igor than anything else. It was a very wasted opportunity to tell the story of a sidekick that has become part of monster lore.
