Film Review: Victor Frankenstein

Victor Frankenstein is out in theatres and our Elodie Cure has this review of a new take on an old classic.

“You know the story. A lightning flash, a mad genius, an unholy creature” Daniel Radcliffe’s voiceover resonates in the theatre while the creature appears on screen, suspended overhead on a rainy and stormy night. Yes, we do know the story that has now turned into a legend.

Synopsis And Analysis:

Yet, director Paul McGuigan presents us a different fiction, an alternative universe version of this most famous monster story. In this one, Victor Frankenstein still seeks a greater understanding of the world through science but he is accompanied by an assistant, Igor. The whole story is thus told from Igor's point of view.

Credit: Victor Frankenstein

As the movie begins, Daniel Radcliffe is a hunchback living in a circus who is brutalised and tormented for the amusement of cruel audiences. He doesn’t even have a name. Yet, when he is not on stage, he is the self-taught physician of the company. We soon learn that Igor possesses a kind of X-ray vision power that enables him to picture the skeletal structure and internal organs of any living entities at a glance. A valuable gift, that he eventually shares with Victor Frankenstein, played by James McAvoy.

When the two men finally meet, it is love at first sight. Victor sees in this hunchback clown the perfect assistant he has been looking for so long. He thus rescues him from his misery, heals him from his infirmity (which was no more than an enormous abscess) and names him “Igor” after an absent housemate.

The two men are then engulfed in frenetic unorthodox experimentation with only one goal on mind: giving life back to what is dead. Soon, Victor’s thirst for power and recognition undermine the relationship between the two scientists. But when Victor’s experiments with life and death go too far, only Igor can bring him back from the brink of madness and save him from his hideous creation.

Credit: Victor Frankenstein

It is clear that Igor and Victor share a special love. The beginning of their relationship vaguely resembled a fairytale: A trapped princess (Igor) rescued by a charming prince (Victor) and it goes on from there, Their ambiguous relationship is a unique one; they are devoted to each other and obsessed with one another.

The first thirty minutes of the film are truly delightful, cheesy and silly. James McAvoy’s character introduction is worthy of a superhero straight out of a Marvel film, when the frame freezes on him and the name “Victor Frankenstein” displays. Some of the dialogues and situations manage to get the whole audience to laugh, and to wrongly think that it was worth paying for a ticket.

However, it’s only once the movie starts going all-in on a mad religious police officer, a rich daddy’s boy who wants to create an army of undead creatures and a romance between Igor and a circus acrobat that the film takes a wrong path. And as for to the end, nothing original or unexpected happens.

Credit: Victor Frankenstein

In this version, “the mad genius” greatest creation is not the insentient and imposing thing patched together but his utterly loyal assistant and only friend, Igor featured by a flawless Daniel Radcliffe (Harry Potter, The Woman in black) .

For his part, James McAvoy (X-Men: Days of Future Past,Trance) offers a terrific performance as Victor Frankenstein. A manic gleam in his eye, James is a sort of Doctor Jekyll and Mister Hyde: switching from the kind and generous scientist to the greedy and manipulative doctor from scene to scene.

In Victor Frankenstein, the climax isn’t big or intense enough to be altogether satisfying, but the cast gives so much to this project, that it is still a pleasant film to watch.

Elodie Cure is a Contributor to ComiConverse. Follow her on Twitter: @Elodie_Cure