Victor Frankenstein

**Spoiler Alert**

Director: Paul McGuigan/Starring: James McAvoy, Daniel Radcliffe, Jessica Brown Findlay, Bronson Webb, Andrew Scott and Charles Dance

One might wonder, while watching Victor Frankenstein; the latest interpretation of Mary Shelley's story, why the world needed another adaptation when so many are so forgettable. Try to remember, if your memory is sound; I, Frankenstein, from 2014. That film, which starred Aaron Eckhart as some sort of superhero Frankenstein; was silly and moronic. If you can't recall the film, it's because it begged you to forget it. Director Paul McGuigan's Frankenstein adaptation isn't quite as bad but it uses every means at its disposal to be forgettable too. In fact, it would rather you didn't wait a day or two after the screening to slip your mind; it demands immediate oblivion.
Though it has a game cast; talented James McAvoy as Victor Frankenstein and Daniel Radcliffe as Igor, and a willingness to tweak the classic story, it nevertheless plays like a tiresome comic book version of Shelley's masterpiece. In fact, much of the inspiration for the story comes not from the novel but Guy Ritchie's inane Sherlock Holmes movies. The look of 19th century London and Victor Frankenstein's bewildering hand-to-hand fighting prowess made me think of Ritchie's ridiculous reimagining of Holmes; who emerged as an action hero in the director's witless interpretation.

McGuigan's story doesn't open with a shot of a castle on a hillside enveloped in stormy atmosphere, but in a circus. An enormous tent is set against the gray, dingy Victorian London skyline. Among the circus performers is a hunchback (Daniel Radcliffe); whose deformity is an indispensable part of his clown persona. When not enduring degradation, which is meted out by cruel management personnel and colleagues alike, he studies human anatomy and medicine. He also moons over the trapeze artist Lorelei (Jessica Brown Findlay), who suffers a fall during her act. Her broken clavicle, which prevents her from breathing properly, is immediately tended to by the hunchback and a patron who happens to be a doctor. The doctor; Victor Frankenstein (James McAvoy), lends his expertise though he is impressed by the hunchback's knowledge of human anatomy and his ability to diagnose the problem. They perform a temporary fix before Dr. Frankenstein offers the hunchback a place in his laboratory. Of course this means escaping from the circus, which becomes a challenge, as the management refuses to part ways with the hunchback. The two escape to Dr. Frankenstein's lab, where the hunchback's hump becomes the focus of Dr. Frankenstein's immediate attention. Through a violent, painful-looking process, the Doctor is able to cure the hunchback of his hunch and correct his severe slouch. He even assigns him the name Igor (borrowed from his former assistant) to help conceal his identity from the circus management.

The two men form an immediate bond and it isn't long before the Doctor shares the secret of his experiments and research (which we already anticipate): the creation of a man from disparate, anatomical parts, which will then be stimulated into life by harnessed electricity. The men set to work on the project and are able to secure funding from an unscrupulous investor named Rafferty (Bronson Webb), who has his own agenda. An obstacle to the project is Inspector Turpin (Andrew Scott), whose religious zealotry makes him the Doctor's hostile foe.

After Igor's make-over, he happens to meet Lorelei at a ball, where his cosmetic overhaul makes him a handsome prospect for her attentions. And while Igor and Lorelei sew the seeds to romance, Dr. Frankenstein tells anyone who will listen about his research in a stentorian voice that is one setting past irritating.

After the Doctor's first creation ends in disaster; his work draws negative attention, which forces him to move his experiments to a new location. Igor, however; becomes disillusioned with Frankenstein's work, which hastens his departure. As the Inspector becomes more aggressive in his plans to thwart Dr. Frankenstein, another attempt at creating a living, breathing entity takes place at a castle-like location. The second attempt serves as the film's climax as Igor, Turpin and Rafferty turn up at the Doctor's new laboratory. Carnage and destruction reign as the new monster vents his rage on everyone in the laboratory.

In the epilogue, we discover the Doctor; who is now a kind of fugitive, seems to have learned nothing from his ill-advised experiment. He also seems un-chastised and unrepentant.

The film's attempt to address the moral and ethical implications of Dr. Frankenstein's efforts to create life takes place during his heated exchanges with Turpin. Though the Doctor's position is ostensibly one of reason; his atheistic convictions turn out to be pretty flimsy as he makes some concessions to the existence of God.

If Shelley's novel serves as a cautionary tale about scientific hubris, McGuigan's is less a warning about scientific overreach than a warning against its suppression by the reactionary attitudes espoused by religion. That seems refreshing but the fact that Victor Frankenstein emerges emotionally and psychically unscathed from his disastrous experiment tells us he has little or no conscience and will remain the reckless, unheeding clown he seems to be throughout the film. Echoing Hollywood's negative attitudes about science, the film ultimately reinforces the notion that scientists are not to be trusted. Only Igor seems to grasp the ominous implications of their work.

Aside from the film's re-imaginings,Victor Frankenstein sinks into a morass of silliness. The look of Victorian England might be gloomy and gray but the film feels almost farcical at times. James McAvoy and Danielle Radcliffe are terrific actors but they are asked to give depth to characters that have motivations but no discernible interesting, interior lives. McAvoy's Frankenstein is an exhausting, hyperactive child who is all Id and no super-ego.

Maybe there should be a moratorium on Frankenstein films. Other than Mel Brooks' Young Frankenstein, I can't think of a version that is worth re-visiting other than James Whale's original 1931 film. Though far from being the worst Shelley adaptation, Victor Frankenstein is very much like the monster the Doctor tries to resurrect; something dead that should have stayed dead.