Movie 136: Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1994)

Starring: Robert De Niro, Kenneth Branagh, Helena Bonham Carter, Tom Hulce, Aidan Quinn, Ian Holm, John Cleese.

Director: Kenneth Branagh.

Ah, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein.  Where Kenneth Branagh watched Bram Stoker's Dracula and said "Me, too!"  I can't remember the last time I watched THIS, either.  I remember a very different sort of insanity from this film.  I'm hoping that, like Coppola's film, this one will also turn out to be something of a pleasant surprise.  This, however, feels like something of a fool's hope.  I recently read a thought piece that suggested that this was the second of an unofficial Universal Monster Movie Revival Trilogy (try saying that five times fast), between the aforementioned Bram Stoker's Dracula and Wolf (which is up next, by the way).  It's an interesting assertion, and is certainly the perspective I'm looking to watch these films from.

We begin with both a voiceover narration (apparently supposed to be Mary Shelley) and then a text set-up, we get things underway.  The text informs us about the whole social/political/scientific upheaval of the late 1700's, which I suppose is useful for those of us unable to remember our history and/or inability to understand contextual narrative subtext, and that a ship is looking to do something or other.  I was kind of too busy typing this to read all of it.

Aidan Quinn is acting all over the place.  It's not quite Gary Oldman, but...well, it's there.  Then we have some moaning, some dead dogs, and Kenneth Branagh(who has a tendency to cast himself-it's a wonder that he didn't cast himself in Thor-in everything ever) whispering into Aidan Quinn's face.  "You share my madness?"  He asks the Captain (Quinn), who responds with venomous malice that there is a passage to the North Pole and HE WILL FIND IT!  Who needs subtext?!

Young Victor is introduced to his new adopted sister by Bilbo Baggins, who also decides to mention the death of said girl's parents right next to her head.  I guess Ian Holm just didn't really care so much about young Elizabeth's feelings on the subjects.  We cut rather rapidly to some very quick and somewhat...flirty...scenes between Victor and his Mother.  Then, fast forward to a lot of heat, sweat and blood as Ian Holm attempts to deliver another child and is forced to perform a C-section, punctuated by a lightning strike because, really, seriously, who needs subtle subtext.  Then Victor goes to her grave, growls "You never should have die.  None should ever die.  I'll stop this."  and then Elizabeth says "You're obsessed!"  I do admire directness....well, no, I don't, I like subtlety.  "None for you, Nathaniel!" the movie cries.

The lightning rod scene had some charm until Victor asks "How do you feel Elizabeth" and she replies "Alive!" and then a spark passes between them.  Jesus.  Cut that crap out, movie.  We know what we're watching, okay?  EVERYONE knows the general principles of Frankenstein, you knobs.  A nice moment of Ian Holm describing the inscription on the journal Victor's Mom got him, followed by a genuine emotional reaction from Branagh was nice enough...and then Victor and Elizabeth kiss while dancing.  Because, well, weird.  I mean, we know they're not REALLY brother and sister but...creepy.  It's accurate to the book, though.  It probably wasn't even all that unusual back in the sixteenth century...but weird enough for the old Universal stuff to cut it.  There seems to be a disconnect between Branagh and Carter in how to play it, too: Carter plays it a little more awkwardly, in contrast to Brangh's open-faced emotional reverie.  This is particularly odd because Branagh is the, y'know, DIRECTOR.  

More directness: Victor argues with his head instructor over established medicine versus Philosophical and thinking for oneself (which the Professor directly says "You are not here to think for yourself")...no subtlety here.  Then there's John Cleese!  Hooray!  Cleese decides to teach Victory and his buddy Henry about electrical impulses in the body, demonstrating with a monkey hand.  Branagh does provide some halfway decent visuals and costume design, if nothing else.  Everything is very dingy.  His sense of pacing isn't on target...and neither is this script.  Cleese says "I tried to create new life and it kinda sucked" and then is murdered by Robert De Niro.  Because that's how these things go.  Man...this movie just flies by.  Hardly any attempt in really building anything. 

It's a serious problem: earlier I suggested that the movie seemed to forget that we, the audience, basically already know the basic ebbs and flows of the Frankenstein story.  Now, it seems to take that for granted.  No real establishment or building of suspense and just rushing by, understanding that we DO know the inevitable outcome of all of this.  Of course, it's spurred on by a really direct script: "Did you think there wouldn't be a terrible price?!" Exclaims Henry.  "To make happy people able to be together, forever?" Victor asks.  Yikes.

Branagh loves to utilize some very...I'm trying to find the right word.  Visceral?  Maybe.  Earthy.  Tangible. I don't know what you'd call hot, sweaty, pressure-cooking-looking medical sequences, such as a Woman excreting Amniotic Fluid.  Electrical wiring attached to a dead frog.  Stuff like that.  It's the closest he gets to aping Coppola's aggressive tendencies.  Branagh also loves to be bare chested, as evidenced by the "post-dumping Elizabeth" scene, where he throws off his shirt and runs around frantically, man nipples and chest hair for the whole world to see.  It's obviously meant to be something of a romantic gesture (the time period/literary version of the word, not the "love" kind) and I suppose it kind of is: he strips himself bare (well, mostly:the scene might actually make  more sense if he were naked) before summoning lightning to animate his fleshy pile of human parts.  It's meant to be an animalistic sequence, one of savage humanity, but it mostly is just a messy jumble of ugly edits.  It could have been a truly extraordinary scene, really, given it's pretensions and, well, good intentions.  Considering it involves Victory dragging a naked, stiches-covered De Niro through massive puddles of viscous fluids...yeah...I hate to say it but Branagh should have been naked.

De Niro's makeup is pretty good...so is the justification that, even though he is now an entirely new entity, he still looks like the guy who murdered John Cleese.  So, when seen by the locals, they attack him.  Pretty sweet chokeslam, too.  It's not a bad representation of what a little bit of super strength might look like.  

Helena Bonham Carter is a weird Woman.  She manages to both be stunningly beautiful and...well, weird looking.  It varies between scenes here.  Some of her dresses look fantastic on her.  Henry doesn't seem to find the whole "adopted siblings" thing.  Again, a lack of subtlety as Victor and Elizabeth run to embrace one another beneath a direct spotlight of sunshine.  Geez.

I want to feel more sympathy for De Niro's take on The Monster but...it's just not really there.  I mean, there is something to his kindness at aiding the Farmers by working their fields as they slept, learning the word friend, protecting them from the landlord and all that.  Of course he's ultimately rejected.  I wonder if it's the fact that he can talk that undercuts the sympathy.  When Karloff played the role, he played it with a sense of childishness, of innocence.  The fact that he couldn't talk made that more apparent, a sense of helplessness despite his raw power.  The fact that The Monster weeps does have some weight, however, especially as he runs back to the house to offer them a flower only to find they've moved on.  De Niro is making due with what he has, but the film seems more or less determined to keep him from actualizing what he could do with it.  This isn't any more apparent as when he yells "I will have revenge....FRANKENSTEIN!" to the sky.  Man, is this movie sloppy.  Especially when that is followed with him once more attempting friendship with Victor's younger brother.

The whole "kid dies in the woods" thing seems off somehow.  Not really sure what that was meant to do, aside from attempting to be shocking.  The shadow of Coppola's Dracula is all over this, especially as they lynch Justine for no real reason.  This whole side plot of the death of the kid and Justine and all that...what is there to gain?  Maybe it's in the book?  I'd accept that.  I really ought to read Frankenstein.  Dracula, too, for that matter.  Oh, okay, so The Monster killed the kid, I guess.  

Another sign that the shadow of Bram Stoker's Dracula is over this: De Niro and his over acting.  It worked for Oldman, but De Niro can't seem to find the footing.  At least De Niro does have a partner worth working with in Branagh, who is a strong actor more often than not, but their interactions lose something in a fairly lackluster presentation: the two men barely even seem to share the same frame.  He insists on a mate, Victor shrugs it off...and we get an overly stylized sex sequence that nobody really needed...again, there seems to be an attempt to utilize bodies, animalism, and other visual metaphors but they fall flat under the seeming need to make things pretty and victorian.  Rather than be physical and visceral, we instead get flowery...but even the flowery is flubbed because, well, there's that half-hearted attempt to go in the other direction.  It's a frustrating film.

"There's nothing left to lose."
"Nothing but your soul!"
 I swear I am going to scream.

See, if Branagh had been naked earlier, his lack of  nudity when he is fixing Elizabeth up for reanimation would have a fun amount of contrast: the intimacy of his original creation vs. attempting to resurrect his lover.  It could have been something, really.  To have a more hurried, less personal approach to bringing Elizabeth back would have underscore a considerable amount of things about Victor and his selfishness, his own hubris, and his lack of true regard for those he loves.  But, instead...retread the hurried, over-acted rush job of a procedure.  That isn't to say the grotesque appearance of Elizabeth post-operation is ineffective, though: far from it.  Carter seems to relish the ghoulishness of her own appearance and brings that to the performance.  It's probably the best thing to happen in this film.  Branagh, I think, undercuts the moment with the slow dance which...well, it's clearly supposed to be tragic and at least mildly insane but instead comes off as a little unintentionally hilarious.  You broke it, Kenneth.  You broke it.

Y'know, I feel like Aidan Quinn would have been a better Victor Frankenstein than Branagh.  I really do.  You had him there and you didn't use him.  But, we all know Branagh.  

The ending is a pretty decent one: The Monster finds his creator dead, and he laments that he was never given a name, and mourns his "Fathers" death.  It feels a little unearned after all the savagery and aggression De Niro brought forth...maybe if there had been a little more sympathy and pathos to the presentation of the character, things might be a bit more even.  Somehow, even Aidan Quinn seeking to rescue the Monster and inviting him to join feels more emotionally relevant than The Monsters tragic end beneath the icy waves.  There's something to the mixture of fire and ice (or even water) but...well, it's just another obvious movement in a film positively FILLED with obvious movements.

Final Thoughts: I really wish this movie was better.  There's so much that one WANTS to like in here, but it never seems to really build itself to anything resembling what it wants to be,  How in the hell did Frank Darabont have a hand in writing this thing?!  I just saw his name in the end credits and it made me throw up in my mouth a little bit.  One of the best screenwriters in the business and even he wasn't able to make this turkey work.  But, again, I feel like-as tragic as the story of Frankenstein is-the real tragedy is that this movie was so bad.  It had every real advantage a movie could have and we ended up with...well, poor dialogue, a complete lack of subtlety, poor characterization and awkward scene and narrative structure.  What we has is a group of lost actors, all more talented than what we see here (and that includes Branagh, who has conviction but no sense) and some decent visual flourishes with strong costume and makeup design.  

Final Rating: Two Stars.  I want to give it another half star but I...I just can't.