Tuesday, February 11, 2014

I, Frankenstein (2014) * *

I really can't remember what I expected from this movie. I'm pretty sure it wasn't what I got though. I checked the trailer again, and I think I wanted a movie that had good visuals, solid action, and some sort of a fantasy-based story line. I sort of got it, but it all fell flat.
The background is basically a snippet of Christian mythology. It reminded me how much people forgot about the rich mythical background that Christianity had in the Middle Ages. Back then it had a rich story background, with angels, demons, spirits and the like. I'm not a Christian, but I love good fantasy stories, and myths to me are that. However, the talk about god and things just felt awkward. I live in a country where there are a lot of atheists, and all the god talk made a lot of people snicker in the theatre. The gods in Percy Jackson felt more rational.
The visuals were well done. Seriously, people turning into gargoyles looked cool. The way demons and gargoyles died was spectacular.
The real problem was the story. It would look good on paper, but the execution was just lame. There didn't seem to be an emotional background. I couldn't connect with the characters at a deeper level. The whole story was rushed to make space for the action scenes. I wouldn't mind some mindless action, but I would like to at least care for the main character a bit. Maybe if he died at the end it would have been more interesting.

The actors are okay. Aaron Eckhart was a good, stoic Frankenstein's monster, who was named Adam. Couldn't care much for his plight, though. I did understand that in a way it's about what it means to be human, and that in spite of being so different, he still has good in him, but that was about it.
Yvonne Strahovski was playing the romantic interest, but there was 0 chemistry, or any feeling of love between them.
Miranda Otto's character, Lenore was an interesting character, but a bit inconsistent. I didn't get the conflict between her and Adam. I mean, they didn't have one, then suddenly they did, and again suddenly, it was all forgiven. It just felt like a really silly plot twist. Maybe it would have made sense if it had more of a build-up, or background, or something, but it didn't make sense the way it was done.
A silly little thing that bothered me was that I couldn't remember where I had seen the actress playing Keziah (Caitlin Stacey - looked it up). She played Kenna in Reign, if anyone was also having this problem.

Overall, the movie wasn't really enjoyable. What failed it was the story. While it had all the elements that could be good, it was a let-down. I'm only giving it two stars, because the visuals were good. What I would like to see is to leave Adam out, and just make a movie about the gargoyles.

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