Guillermo del Toro is one of my very favourite filmmakers in the world. His mix of dark and whimsical has wowed me nearly every time he's taken the director's chair and he has delivered some of my all time favs in Pan's Labyrinth, The Shape of Water, and The Devil's Backbone. I don't think there's a better choice in the world to adapt Mary Shelley's iconic novel, and we as audiences are extremely lucky to be living in a world where del Toro got the chance to.
Based on Shelley's 1818 gothic horror novel, the film follows Victor Frankenstein, a mad scientist striving to create life. When he does, the creature he creates becomes something beyond his control and beyond what the world may be ready for. We all know the story, or at least some of it. James Whale's 1931 film essentially created the visual iconography for Frankenstein's monster, but his take strips a lot away from Shelley's novel. del Toro's take doesn't manage to fit all the goodness from its source material, but it is without a doubt the closest we've gotten with any mainstream adaptation.
del Toro's style is the clear star of the show here. His penchant for extravagant sets and costumes works perfectly for this larger than life gothic tale. Visually he captures the coldness of Shelley's novel extremely well but when we get to spend time indoors, especially within Frankenstein's castle, the production work is so rich and otherworldly that I honestly could have spent so much longer in this world. The costumes don't have the chance to be as extravagant as in some of his prior work, but the sets are truly just astounding. Also in typical del Toro fashion, the hair and makeup department is doing insane work. Jacob Elordi plays the iconic monster, and while he isn't unrecognizable the makeup team did an insane job in turning him into this pieced together creature. There are some scenes where he has distractingly long hair, but other than that I was wowed.
On the topic of the cast, Elordi actually really impressed me. The monster in the novel is very different from the version in Whale's film. While that version of the character was just bumbling around, Shelley's version is one who learns a lot over the course of the story and winds up extremely well spoken. This adaptation maybe doesn't quite get there, but Elordi does a great job with his physicality to both intimidate and make you empathize with the character. Dr. Frankenstein himself is played by Oscar Isaac in a very over the top in a good way performance. He acts with a grandeur that fits the epic nature of the story really well, fully becoming the mad scientist at the heart of the story. The one piece of the cast that disappointed me was sadly Mia Goth. This isn't entirely her fault as her character is given very little to do, but I found that she struggled to give the character anything beyond what little was on the page.
That misuse of Goth's character is a big gripe I have with the whole of the film. There's a decent amount of emphasis put on her but it doesn't really go anywhere, and having her fully fleshed out could have added a lot more emotional depth to the film. On the whole I do think things could have been fleshed out a bit more, it's a long film but not one that drags at all so adding some time to help build ideas out more would have made everything hold a bit more weight. One area I was pleasantly surprised though was in the gore. With how sweet del Toro is as a person I forget how brutal he can get, and there's some stuff that made me wince more than anticipated here. I also need to mention, the cinematography is astonishingly beautiful here, as is the score from Alexandre Desplat. There are certainly areas this could have been improved, but on the whole del Toro's latest impressed me a ton, the man doesn't miss. 4/5
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