This is a contender for the most overrated movie of the year, and a huge disappointment.
The film puts take-me-seriously dialogue together with ridiculously over the top Gothic visuals, so they cancel each other out. The Laboratory is probably the most nonsensical building ever visualised this side of Gryphon Hill. Oscar Isaac, the world’s most overrated actor, puts in an uneven performance that leaves us with no idea about Victor’s character (also, he looks too old). Meanwhile, Jacob Elordi puts in a tremendous performance as the creation. But unfortunately radiates so much niceness that he is not at all frightening. This removes any nuance from “the monster is good, actually” “twist” and is so sexy that he really doesn’t need a partner made for him. This part of the plot is largely cut, in one of the significant changes to the novel. However the change my Literature-grad partner objected to was to the character of Victor’s father. In this version Victor is only a bad dad because his dad was a bad dad. Which rather undercuts the message that he is the real monster.
In conclusion, this movie is not frightening and has nothing new or insightful to say about the story - indeed it’s exceptionally unsubtle. It’s watchable enough if you want something shallow to pass the time, but it’s not worth a Netflix sub to see. I would give it two out of five stars.
