Frankenstein [2025]
Entry updated 15 December 2025. Tagged: Film.
US film (2025). Double Dare You Films, Demilo Films, Bluegrass 7, Netflix. Written and directed by Guillermo Del Toro, based on Frankenstein; Or, the Modern Prometheus (1818; rev 1831) by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley. Cast includes Charles Dance, Jacob Elordi, Mia Goth, Oscar Isaacs, Felix Kammerer, Lars Mikkelsen and Christoph Waltz. 150 minutes. Colour.
The story is the familiar one, and rendered largely faithfully, in two sections, the first entitled "Part I: Victor's Tale", the second "Part II: The Creature's Tale", plus a prelude in which a Danish exploration vessel heading for the North Pole encounters both on the ice. There are some significant changes of plot and emphasis, some quite minor; for instance, the little girl in the novel whom the Creature (Elordi) saves is removed, and the lessons that the Creature learns about humanity are concentrated into the scenes with the blind man who teaches him to read. More significant alterations include: Victor (Isaac) is now driven to succeed in his experiments in an attempt to outdo his overbearing doctor father (Dance); Elizabeth (Goth) chooses Victor's brother William over Victor, and is clearly far more sympathetic to the Creature than to Victor, and here it is the Scientist who (accidentally) kills her; most egregiously, there is an emotional bedside reconciliation between creator and creation in the Arctic, followed by the Creature rescuing the explorers' ship from the ice.
This is a long-cherished project for Del Toro, who began planning the film at least as early as 2008, but viewers may, after an enjoyable two-and-a-half hours, wonder why: for all its professionalism and high-profile cast, there is little indication of a personal vision stamped upon the material, or what a new version can add to the number of existing adaptations other than a return to the source material. Unsurprisingly, this twenty-first century take on Frankenstein downplays any Religious aspects, with the emphasis very much on generational conflict, and the responsibility of fathers to children, whether natural or created, and is unambivalent in its sympathy towards the Creature. There are many incidental pleasures to be had. Rather than a lumbering Frankenstein Monster, Elordi's portrayal is often lithe and physically eloquent, particularly when he is first brought to life. The landscape cinematography and set designs are memorable, Victor's laboratory looking more like a decaying, dripping Gothic structure than a place of scientific experiment, while the creature is brought to life in a remote, crumbling castle. Del Toro is clearly unafraid of melodrama, which befits the subject matter, and the film swings between confident grandeur and misguided sentimentality, with suitably full-blooded performances. [CWa]
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