From the moment they had the idea, it was a bad idea. The second they started writing the script, it was a bad idea. Once fine actors signed on for the job, it was a bad idea. All in all, seeing ‘I, Frankenstein’ is a bad idea. It’s not even bad in the legendary way movies like Xanadu and Movie 43 are. It’s just, well, you know.
The beginning is one of the most ludicrous in memory featuring Victor Frankenstein carrying his creation (Aaron Eckhart) across mountain tops and barren waste lands just to dump him in a puddle, to which point said creation walks all the way back with no trouble like some hat- fueled Labrador to kill his wife because, hey, why not? That, and all the way to the nonsensical action sequence with plenty of half-assed jumping like pigmies, this movie makes no attempt to make any sense of anything.
Every shot and every scene does nothing but raise questions as to why all of this happening and why is it happening now and why they aren’t explaining anything. Within fifteen minutes there is an “introduction” to the character, monsters killing each other, 200 years past, it all happens again, and the tone become that on a continuous, rushed final act. Everything everyone does has a “then suddenly” manner of thinking behind it and when one character does explain what’s going on, it then contradicts what was going on before it. It’s like when the writer stopped to go watch Two and Half Men (I assume a writer of this caliber watches a show of that caliber) his kids came in and wrote in their own versions of the plot.
There is some strange holy war going on between the gargoyles and the demons and Frankenstein (He prefers Adam in the movie) is somewhere in the middle for some reasons. Oh yes, you heard me right. The names of the good guys are gargoyles that call themselves the Gargoyle Army and the bad guys are bad guys that call themselves the Demon Horde. There was not even enough ingenuity to give them unique titles. All I could picture for 20 minutes was the creator of the first gargoyle putting on the last touches and going, “I will call you Stone-buttmores!” and then being interrupted with, “A-hem, we prefer Gargoyle, thank you very much.”
From here on out its nothing but poppy cocked plot, egregious editing and stupid action (I couldn’t think of an A word to go with that). The worst of all is the entire movie has no remote sense of space or time. The characters just show up places and seem to always know whom everyone is and where they will be always. You know how long it takes to get from one area of Paris (which I’m merely guessing they are) to another? A long time, and Frankenstein stomping around like some tween who got his Daft Punk CD stolen won’t get you anywhere in a hurry.
But what this movie, and many others like it, does is that because everyone involved does such a bad job that if you were trying to argue any of these points to them they would go, “Well this is like this because of this…duh!” They seem to know the answers to these gaps in plot or characterization but do such a bad job of conveying it that it comes off as condescending. It’s not only bad, but it’s a rude movie as well. The movie isn’t even fun, it’s so bad you’re better off buying Advil than popcorn. There is no humor on display nor any personality or charm. It’s like if they gave bad writers a book of stock phrases and clichés on their birthdays, then this writer used every single one. I’ll just leave you with this: I had the most fun when a woman was hiding behind a trash can, and Frankenstein out of nowhere emerges behind her with such bulging eyes and intensity he looked like the world’s worst sex criminal, who also pooed his pants. F
