(Short) Movie Review: Victor Frankenstein (2015)

Posted on 05/20/2021 by Pisaries Creator

Make a Good First Impression

My first acquaintance with Frankenstein came in an English class where I learned about Mary Wollstonecraft and her daughter Mary Shelley. In most cases, books are better than the movies. While this movie is an adaptation that strays from the book, it was entertaining to watch. Therefore, James McAvoy playing a disturbed and crazy doctor/scientist and Daniel Radcliffe playing a circus freak made a good first impression. I wanted to see where the story would go and how it would end. There is more humor and comedic interaction between the Frankenstein and Igor than seriousness. It’s rating of PG-13 tells you all you need to know. It’s not a movie to be taken seriously.

Crazy is as Crazy Does

Frankenstein (McAvoy) is over the top throughout the movie. His reasons for taking pity on Igor is purely selfish. Once he forms a relationship with Igor, I watched him descend into further madness. He’s a person who hears yes when you say no. He’s a person who thinks he is bigger than and without any faults. He simply is a person who wants to defy death by embracing life after death. Between their brains, Frankenstein believes he can outsmart the police and anyone else who gets in his way. Victor Frankenstein reminds me of what happens when an aristocrat who happens to be a doctor/scientist has all the money in his family’s bank vault to spend for his own whims. He is a narcissist where everyone else is to blame but him. The only thing he sees and wants is success and victory. He simply can’t see the dangers of what he is doing and yet, Frankenstein is still a likable but very flawed character.

Igor is the Real Hero

Igor (Radcliffe) is the source of reason for Frankenstein when everything comes crashing down around him. Despite his looks prior to meeting Frankenstein, he is much more the balanced person between the two of them. He only wants to have a normal life where partner wants to invent the living dead no matter what the cost might be. There are rarely happy endings in this kind of story especially one that has been adapted many times over. The focus was more on the relationship between Igor and Frankenstein although the monstrosity they created is nothing short of a miracle in Frankenstein’s view. How long he lives is the next question.

I rate Victor Frankenstein THREE FINGERS at 80%.