by Joseph Rossi
I remember when I felt sorry for Frankenstein’s Creation. After watching I, Frankenstein, he’s better off dead.
Well, it’s happened. After a great movie going season that’s produced some amazing work, we’re in the doldrums. I decided to see, for purely idiotic reasons I, Frankenstein. I knew it would be bad, but sometimes I like to eat a candy bar after eating salad for three months straight. But this is bad, really bad. It takes a iconic literary character and a famous cinematic legend and throws both their legacy’s into the toilet.
200 years after killing his maker, Frankenstein’s monster, now nicknamed Adam, wanders the earth, fighting a demon army hell bent on getting the secrets of reanimation. The plot is absolutely ludicrous but coming from the makers of the Underworld series, I would expect nothing less. The surprising element is that the great Arron Eckhart, an actor I admire, plays the monster. From Thank You For Smoking, to The Dark Knight to Rabbit Hole, he’s one I usually look forward to seeing in the cast. I’ve heard of paycheck jobs before; Michael Caine in Jaws: The Revenge and Ben Affleck in anything from 1999 to 2005. But if one takes a money job, a least show some gusto. Eckhart broods and growls through the film without any signs of life (no pun intended). It looks like he’s having a miserable time.
I do give some props to the action sequences. Director Stuart Beattie handles them well for a writer turned director. Beattie is best known for his excellent screenplays. He wrote Collateral and 3:10 to Yuma. Too bad he wrote this. The film, for all its vivid action, gets bogged down by exposition that basically spoon-feeds the audience. And don’t get me started on the bad post-converted 3D. It just makes this bad film even worse. Watch Boris Karloff’s take on the character. Or better still, read the book. Read it twice to take the taste of this mess out of your mouth.
