Film Review - Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1994)

Mary Shelley's Frankenstein is directed by Sir Kenneth Branagh and he also stars in it as Dr Victor Frankenstein the man who creates the monster (Robert De Niro) but unwittingly thinks he has died after being created and this mistake will cost him dearly.

Now I love Sir Ken Branagh I really do, the man has made some great movies (most recently his work on the live action Cinderella and the underrated Peter's Friends) but sadly this is much more in line with his work on Jack Ryan Shadow Recruit last year as it is a real bore to sit through.

And the problem is that despite all of its visual and audio splendour the script (co-written by Frank Darabont of all people) just fails to engage you on any level and the performances are just ridiculous and Ken has to be first up as for the most part he runs around with his shirt off whilst screaming "ELIZABETH, LIVE, NOOOOOOOOO" and you just sit there cringing at the blatant over the top acting going on with him.

But he isn't the only one, Aidan Quinn a good actor is wasted in his small role, Robert De Niro brings nothing to the role of the monster and just mumbles his way through, Helena Bonham Carter is miscast as Elizabeth (I kept wishing Emma Thompson had done that role instead) and finally Tom Hulce doesn't get a lot to do here as well.

But what I did like was the visual design by Tim Harvey, the costumes by James Acheson and especially Patrick Doyle's musical score and you can see some seeds here watching their work in this movie of what Branagh would eventually do with his Cinderella film which has a very similar feel to this movie in terms of its visuals and musical score.

But alas those elements don't save Frankenstein from being an unengaging bore to sit through, sorry Sir Ken but you dropped the ball this time around, 1.5 out of 5.