6th January 2016, 09:45 PM
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 | Cult King Cult Labs Radio Contributor
Senior Moderator | | Join Date: Mar 2011 Location: Lancashire | |
Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1994)
Co-produced by Francis Ford Coppolla as a companion piece to his Bram Stoker's Dracula from a couple of years earlier and directed by and starring Kenneth Branagh as Victor Frankenstein, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein is an energetic yet faithful take on the oft filmed classic novel by Shelley. It's testament to the screen writers, Frank Darabont among them, that the film is distilled enough but also authentic to the original story allowing Branagh the director to push Branagh the actor at a frenetic pace, his Victor Frankenstein all hot and sweaty and shirtless, takes on the role in a way you could never imagine Colin Clive or Peter Cushing, (the screens two most famous Frankensteins) wishing to do, in fact they would both probably find Brannagh's take incerdibly vulgar.
Branagh assembles a fine cast. Tom Hulce, John Cleese, Helena Bonham-Carter, Ian Holm, Richard Briers amd Aiden Quinn, all give admirable support but it's the films other star - Robert DeNiro who steals the film, a bit like Karloff did in the Universal films. DeNiro, one of cinemas finest ever actors, brings something else to the role of the monster. At first a hulking mass of bloody stitiches and unquestionable horror, but as the film progresses and time moves on he softens. The wounds slowly heal, DeNiro removes the stitches and he becomes more human. The nuts and bolts of the classic Frankenstein monster are nowhere to be seen in this version and the film benefits from this meaning DeNiro can never be compared to the mighty Karloff, except for character name only. Indeed DeNiro brings a compassion to the role. His scenes with Briers, a blind man who lives in the forest, are short but rather moving and very memorable. This creature isn't out for revenge. He's a monster in name only. He wants to leave the world of men behind, a world that has no tolerance of anything different, but in this creatures case he passionately wants a bride to take with him, a companion to see out his days with. By this stage DeNiro plays the role not as a creature or monster but as a man and it's this aspect that makes Mary Shelley's Frankenstein a very good film in my eyes.
Truth be told there's not an awful lot of horror in the film. Playing out more as a Gothic piece of science fiction drama than anything truly horrible. The creature coming to life in Frankenstein's incredible looking laboratory easily rivals anything we've seen before, the set design throughout the film is flawless. The staircase in Frankenstein's mansion is a stunning piece of design which almosts begs for Dracula to descend down it with his flowing black and red cloak. In fact it's not until the final twenty minutes that the film becomes horror. The monsters revenge attack on Bonham-Carter, Frankenstein's wife, is truly savage and sets the scene for the introduction of the Bride of Frankenstein and a shocking fiery finale.
The film is book ended with Frankenstein being hunted by the creature at the North Pole and coming across a ship captained by Aiden Quinn's Captain Walton. It's through Victor's telling to Walton that we see the film play out until we return to the ice caps at the end as Frankenstein passes away, the creature having caught up with him and in a poignant moment refusing passage with Walton so he can be with his maker, his enemy, his... father, as the two finally die on an iceberg funeral pyre.
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