VICTOR FRANKENSTEIN (2015)

Studio:       20th Century Fox
Director:    Paul McGuigan
Writer:       Max Landis
Producer:  John Davis
Stars:     Daniel Radcliffe, James McAvoy, Jessica Brown Findlay, Andrew Scott, Freddie Fox, Charles Dance, Daniel Mays, Callum Turner, Bronson Webb

Review Score:

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Summary:

The story of Victor Frankenstein’s mad desire to create life is seen from the side of his laboratory assistant Igor.

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Synopsis:     Show/Hide Spoilers

Working as both clown and troupe doctor at Lord Barnaby’s Circus and Menagerie, hunchback Igor admires trapeze artist Lorelei from afar. During a performance in London, Igor meets scientist Victor Frankenstein when the two men work together to reset Lorelei’s clavicle following a sudden fall.

Recognizing the other man’s medical talent, Victor helps Igor escape the circus. Observing that Igor was misled into believing he had a hunchback, Victor drains Igor’s abscess and straightens his spine.

Based on Barnaby’s accusations, Inspector Roderick Turpin and Constable Alistair begin investigating Igor’s disappearance with Igor and Victor wanted for murdering a man during their escape.

While she lies unconscious, Igor visits Lorelei at Chiswick Cross Hospital for the Ruptured Poor. Lorelei is released from the hospital after joining Baron Bomine’s cabaret and becoming Bomine’s public consort. Igor later reconnects with Lorelei when they meet again at a society event.

Victor makes Igor his laboratory assistant. Victor introduces Igor to his experiments in replicating life. After showing Igor a patchwork chimpanzee named Gordon he is able to momentarily reanimate through electricity, Victor promotes Igor to partner.

Igor invites Lorelei to Victor’s experiment presentation at the Royal College of Medicine. Victor and Igor are eventually able to reanimate Gordon again, but the beast escapes its restraints and tears through the college. Victor is forced to kill his creation. However, the demonstration convinces Finnegan to fund Victor’s next experiment to create a man over Igor’s objections.

Turpin interviews Victor and threatens to search his laboratory. Lorelei worries that Victor’s vision may be compromising Igor’s conscience. Victor’s father admonishes his son after learning the college intends to expel him for neglecting his schoolwork.

While Victor continues his and Igor’s work creating the modern Prometheus, Igor attends a ball with Lorelei. Igor and Lorelei have sex. Igor returns to the lab to find Turpin and his team attempting to break down the door. Igor sneaks in another entrance. While frantically preparing Prometheus for transport, Victor reveals that the body used for the experiment belongs to his former assistant Igor Straussman.

Having secretly followed Igor, Turpin enters the basement lab and confronts Victor at gunpoint. Victor is able to trap Turpin’s arm in mechanical gears while he and Igor escape in a carriage provided by Finnegan.

Acting on Finnegan’s plan, Victor goes off on his own after Igor refuses to continue their controversial work. Finnegan abducts Igor and has him thrown in the Thames as the first step in taking control of Victor’s technology. Igor escapes the water and recovers under Lorelei’s care.

For entering Victor’s property without a warrant as well as his escalating obsession, Turpin is removed from the investigation.

A change of heart inspires Igor to return to Victor and continue the experiment. Lorelei insists on accompanying him. Lorelei distracts Finnegan’s guards while Igor scales the wall of the new laboratory where Victor is working with Finnegan and his men. Having followed her carriage, Turpin captures Lorelei.

Igor finds Victor alone and tells him that Finnegan intends to kill them both and steal the research. Victor is too focused on his discovery to care. Igor produces Victor’s pocket watch and appeals to his desire to return life to his dead brother Henry.

Victor returns to the experiment while Igor observes from a distance. Lightning successfully animates Prometheus, but a power overload destroys much of the lab along with Finnegan’s men. Turpin confronts Victor as Prometheus breaks free from its chains. Victor confronts his monster and realizes he created a shell of life, not a recreation of his brother Henry.

Prometheus tosses Victor over a wall. It then knocks Turpin into an apparatus that explodes and kills the inspector. Victor and Igor battle the monster, ultimately killing it.

Victor disappears in the aftermath. Lorelei reunites with Igor. Igor finds a letter from Victor indicating his intent to perfect the experiment while also naming Igor as his greatest creation.

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Review:

If you were to visualize the usual onscreen importance of Igor, Victor Frankenstein, and the monster as a seesaw board, Igor would be on the ground, Victor would be at the fulcrum, and the monster would rise as high as (in)humanly possible.  “Victor Frankenstein” teeters that totter towards the opposite slant by demoting Frankenstein’s creation to bit player while spotlighting an intelligent Igor as the unlikely star in this unusual version of Mary Shelley’s tale.

Igor lives as a clown in Barnaby’s traveling circus.  It’s important to the script that Igor has a tragic background as an abused jester in search of identity, but it also needs him to be medically competent for research science.  So when he isn’t being kicked in his hunchback by fellow freak show harlequins, Igor doubles as the troupe’s resident doctor.  Best to look the other way on how his physician/Punchinello combination works out so conveniently.

Igor’s from-afar adoration of trapeze artist Lorelei turns to hands-on horror when the entrancing acrobat suffers a frightful fall mid-performance.  Victor Frankenstein, looking for spare parts from the animal pens, leaps forward from the O-mouthed onlookers.  Fate then forms the first link in their master-assistant bond as he and Igor work together to save the day.

Having recently lost his previous partner under suspicious circumstances, Victor daringly rescues Igor from his carnival captors, straightens his back, and makes the man an essential part of a plan to discover the secret of creation.  As Victor’s obsession with defeating death grows, so does the conflict in Igor’s conscience.  Victor has shaped him into a new man, but how far will Igor go in aiding Frankenstein’s dangerous desire to build a man of his own?

“Frankenstein” as a title has historically referred to the man and not the monster, although Igor argues perhaps Victor is both.  The actual creation and eventual appearance of Frankenstein’s modern Prometheus is an almost perfunctory plot point in this particular retelling.  Adding his first name to the title is one more act of confirmation that even though Igor provides the eyes, Victor Frankenstein is the soul of this story.  That makes this mostly James McAvoy’s movie.

McAvoy channels a near-perfect Robert Downey Jr.-like performance to make Victor simultaneously charming, chaffing, egotistical, and endearing.  McAvoy’s Victor is always the smartest as well as the craziest person in any given room, and he is well aware of both facts.

His is a complicated character constantly ping-ponging between wildly manic and then mildly muttering under his breath.  What’s terrific about this take is that like Downey, McAvoy knows which words in his overwrought dialogue are essential for enunciation, and which are opportunities for breezing through breathless playfulness.  That style has long enabled Downey to make mediocre material more entertaining.  McAvoy comes close to engaging on a similar level, though a screenplay slowing often to explain its science keeps his personality from consistently burning at high temperature.

Further dousing the sizzle of James McAvoy and Daniel Radcliffe’s collective chemistry is a haranguing police procedural B-story and an undercooked romance for Igor.  Andrew Scott as Inspector Turpin, investigating Victor and Igor for murdering a man during their circus escape, is too dry for a formidable foil.  Turpin is then partnered with a practically mute constable whose sole purpose is keeping the inspector from looking like he is talking to himself via one-sided dialogue.

With the monster MIA until act three, forcefully fitting the detective angle is intended to have some sort of danger nipping at Victor and Igor’s boots.  Except the arc is so far behind where Victor and Igor are moving that it is an uninteresting distraction halting the main story’s momentum.

“Victor Frankenstein” has multiple subplots involving Turpin’s religious motivation, Igor’s limp love affair with Lorelei, Victor’s disapproving father (Charles Dance in a brief one and done scene), and a rival scheming to steal Victor’s research.  All of these threads unspool in inconsequential directions, and none of them are as compelling as the two chief characters.

Visually, “Victor Frankenstein” is a good-looking film.  Too good.  Combining heaps of period props and CGI spectacle, the movie captures some of the grandeur of towering architecture and crackling coils that gave “Frankenstein” 1931 its memorable look.  But excessive production design spits up enough scenery to fill eight movies.

Busy backgrounds of fireworks-filled skies and crowded carnival midways.  Bustling laboratories of bursting electricity and clanking contraptions.  Graphic overlays identifying anatomy in slow-motion.  One needs three sets of eyes to see everything on the screen.  The everywhere flair goes past immersive fantasy and becomes unrealistic clutter.  “Victor Frankenstein” is an illustrative case of when everything swims in overcompensating style, spectacle ceases to impress.

The obvious jest is to comment that “Victor Frankenstein” mimics construction of the titular man’s infamous creation: an imposing sight with star-power strength to knock down a wall, but lumbering off balance from mismatched limbs and an underdeveloped brain.  Ten minutes shy of two hours is a long time for uneven characters to arrive at unsatisfactory resolutions in underwhelming subplots.

Once again comparable to the creature, forgiving the imperfect manner in which it is stitched together, there is a sheer force of determined will exploding inside.  Radcliffe and McAvoy’s insistence on being better than the rest of the movie makes their commitment worth the watch.  Even if “Victor Frankenstein” did not have that, it justifies its existence among a mire of indistinguishably mediocre Frankenstein movies simply by offering unique perspective on familiar content.

Review Score:  65

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