I , FRANKENSTEIN (2014)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTIONS: *metaphysical, psychological*

I have not read the Kevin Grievoux graphic novel on which I. FRANKENSTEIN was based, being both written and directed by Stuart Beattie. However, the movie feels like an author's attempt to duplicate a previous success, that of Grievoux's UNDERWORLD story, which from 2003 went on to spawn a successful though not critically acclaimed franchise. Wikipedia asserts that, because the production company for FRANKENSTEIN was the same as for UNDERWORLD, there was some thought of having Selene from the earlier franchise guest-star in the newer one. But the only thing this would have accomplished would have been to highlight the structural identity of the two, since both franchises concerned a lone hero caught between two warring species of superhumans.

As the film opens, the misshapen Monster (Aaron Eckhart) has  undergone all of the torments and entanglements seen in Mary Shelley's novel, up to the point when the Monster's creator perishes after seeking to kill his creation in the Arctic wastes. Then the story diverges from Shelley, for the Monster, disgusted with his own excesses (including the slaying of Frankenstein's wife), transports the scientist's body back to Europe and lays his creator to rest in the family graveyard. Already tormented by the demons in his own spirit, the Monster is surprised to be attacked by real, flesh-and-blood demons. His nearly indestructible body is wounded by the fiends, but a pair of beneficent beings, of another race called "gargoyles," come to his rescue. 

These good-hearted beings are the direct creations of the Judeo-Christian God, and as such, they, led by female gargoyle Leonore (Miranda Otto), are eternally opposed to the demons from Hell. It's not clear to Leonore as to what the demons wanted with the Monster, but she advises him to make common cause with them. (She also christens the creature with the name "Adam," and the Monster more or less accepts the cognomen.) Adam declines to help the gargoyles and goes off to the remote parts of the world, occasionally slaying demons when they find him-- all of which allows the creature to transition to the twenty-first century. Eventually Adam learns that the leader of the demons, Prince Naberius, has a dire plot to make more artificial beings with the surviving notes of Doctor Frankenstein. With such beings to serve as vessels for Hell's demons-- who, contrary to Biblical lore, cannot possess living people-- Naberius can conquer the living world in the name of Hell.

FRANKENSTEIN flopped at the box office, and it probably deserved to do so, since it took the highly complex mythology of the Frankenstein concept and dumbed it down to the level of an adventure RPG. I assume Grievoux originated the basic concept of "warrior angels" and calling them "gargoyles," perhaps to avoid conflict with Christian crusaders-- but by so doing, he and Beattie short-changed their own project. The Monster created by Mary Shelley was, after a fashion, a Christian by way of his having been enthralled by Milton's PARADISE LOST, which narrative revolved largely around the war between God's obedient angels and the outcast demons. A more sophisticated script might have delved into Adam's metaphysical crisis, especially if he might have felt more kinship to the outcasts than to Heaven's loyalists. But Beattie's script merely piddles around with shallow concepts about Adam seeking to "find his soul" or suchlike.

The action-scenes are the best feature of the film, and they're merely adequate. Eckert's Monster isn't the repulsive figure of most movies, but is turned into sort of a "matinee idol" monster along the lines of Gerard Butler's lordly "Phantom of the Opera." He even has a quasi-romantic moment with a hot lady scientist (Yvonne Strahovski), which doesn't come to much of anything. But even if I, FRANKENSTEIN sins against the source material, at least there are tons of other films that have done the same, and with worse results. And so this movie's sins are far less blameworthy than those of, say, THOR RAGNAROK.