MARY SHELLEY'S FRANKENSTEIN (1994)
Reviewed by Jerry Saravia
All due respect to Boris Karloff's iconic creation of the Monster with electric bolts and square head, Robert De Niro's incarnation of the Creature looks like something assembled out of human body parts that are sewn together. Complete with stitches, sores, huge hands and a limp, this monster is determined to make life a living hell for his creator, Victor Frankenstein (Kenneth Branagh).
At the start of "Frankenstein," the mad doctor is seen in the icy landscape of the Arctic chased by the Creature. Frankenstein is finally able to get away long enough to tell his story to a determined explorer (Aidan Quinn) of where this creature came from. We all know the story of Frankenstein as he slowly grows insane, desperately trying to create life out of dead human tissue. The climactic, over-the-top sequence begins exactly as one would expect. In his subterranean lab, Dr. Frankenstein makes several attempts to bring life to an executed beggar (who has Frankenstein's mentor's brain) with thousands of volts of electricity tapped into a huge water tank. The Creature breaks out of the tank, escapes and finds refuge at a barn where a blind hermit lives with his family. The Creature learns to communicate and read, and then it discovers rather quickly that the good doctor has created him and made him into an ugly being. Meanwhile, Frankenstein has fallen in love with his adopted sister, Elizabeth (Helena Bonham Carter). Their mutual attraction is interrupted by tragedy and death in the wake of the Creature.
"Mary Shelley's Frankenstein" moves at a fast clip but it is hampered by Kenneth Branagh's portrayal of the doctor - at first, he seems like a young, mad and immoral scientist but after his creation walks away, the vigor and excitement drains away as if Branagh did not know where to go with the character. Of course that could be intentional but it appears as if he is sleepwalking. Sad to say that the wonderful Helena Bonham Carter ("Howard's End") brings zilch to the role of Elizabeth, probably due to being severely underwritten. She is mostly reduced to myriad romps in the hay with bare-chested Branagh.
The heart and soul of "Frankenstein" can be found in De Niro, who brings pathos, sadness and terror to the Creature that touches base with Mary Shelley's novel more so than most other versions. With several ugly stitches, scars, two different eyes and a bald head, he comes across as a tragic figure who could literally break your heart.
Spectacular production design, fine special-effects and a rapid pace enliven "Frankenstein," but sometimes Branagh does not know when to quit. Too many circling camera pans and hyperbolic, overly theatrical performances and sequences (including a Caesarean birth) are overstating - they would make Ken Russell jealous. As terrific as De Niro is, the last few scenes feel like a revisiting of his Max Cady psycho from "Cape Fear." On the whole, it is as if Branagh was trying to outdo the operatic flourishes of Coppola's version of "Dracula" (Coppola incidentally produced this one as well). "Frankenstein" has style to spare, but it needed to be dramatically dialed down.
