Saturday 11 February 2017

Review: Victor Frankenstien (2015)

Stars: Daniel Radcliffe, James McAvoy

Budget: $40 million

Directed By: Paul McGuigan

The story thats been told a million times in a million different ways finds quite a new way to retell the story from a different perspective.

That perspective is Igor's (Radcliffe), that's right we see the usually hunchbacked manservant of Victor's (McAvoy) background story.
From being the circus as a freak and a clown to being rescued due to his brilliant knowledge of medicine and the human anatomy.
Mainly self taught and from being the circus troupes on hand doctor should anyone need treating.

He is bullied and treated badly at the hands of the circus folk despite them being his 'family' When Victor see's him save the life of one of the trapeze artists he loves using a remarkable medical procedure he see's the potential the young man has.

Rescuing Igor In quite a flamboyant way they both escape after one of the circus members kills one of the other performers. A heavily Christian  police detective gets involved due to this and seems to get very personal towards Victor.
Victor seemingly violently attacks Igor once they get back to his place, what he really does is extract all the puss from the abscess on his back and force his spine straight with the help of a back brace.
He never realised that it wasn't a deformity just a cyst that's been on him for many years.

With Igor's help Victor is able to accelerate his work on dead tissue, Igor due to the kindness Victor has shown him is only all to happy to help him. The two become very good friends over the course of the film. Igor visits the girl from the trapeze accident frequently until she is removed by a lord who vows to look after her. However he hasn't lost her as this is just a front for the lord who prefers 'the company of men' She eventually recognizes Igor and they get along well.

They manage to create life with a monkey corpse and a few other bits. but when it goes mad in attempt to show some rich benefactors (of which Victor still manages to secure funding) the detective cottons onto what they are trying to do and does everything in his power to stop Victor.
Victor and Igor eventually have a falling out when Igor tries to get Victor to stop what he's doing and also rescue him from a mob that the detective has used to try and break into Victor's barricaded apartment. Escaping he leaves Igor behind to be almost killed by Victor's benefactor, Victor takes off for the benefactors family castle in Scotland.
The story of Frankenstein's monster pretty much starts from this point this on, except for the fact that Igor goes to try save Victor. That's pretty much the last 15-20 minutes of the film.

So you know here at THN we don't spoil the ending to films unless they're so abysmal we really don't think it's worth watching. Now this film is not great, despite both Radcliffe and McAvoy giving superb performances. I mean they really have great chemistry with each other and both leap head on into their roles. It's just something doesn't work be it the story, the pacing or supporting cast.
I can't quite put my finger on it but it's definitely a mix of the last three that makes this film lose one star from it's rating here. So yes it's only 2 out of 5 stars here at THN but i think it's definitely worth a watch for the two leading men's roles, other than that leave alone.




No comments:

Post a Comment