Monday, October 7, 2013

This Is the Best They Got?

Aaron Eckhart as a Hot Creature
Along with Dracula, Frankenstein and Frankenstein's Monster (or Creature) have been the subjects of movies since the days of Edison

Most people think of James Whale's Frankenstein and The Bride of Frankenstein from Universal in the 1930's. Hammer Films had their own version of the franchise in the 70's and there have been any number of stage and television productions of the story. Portrayed in various versions by Boris Karloff; Bela Lugosi; Lon Chaney, Jr; Glenn Strange; Fred Gwynne; Christopher Lee; Peter Boyle; Peter Hinwood; Shuler Hensley and Robert DiNiro (among many others) in I, Frankenstein, Aaron Eckhart is the Creature from Mary Shelley's novel, still alive after 200 years and apparently drawn into a fight with gargoyles or some such nonsense. The movie comes from the same people who keep making those deplorable Underworld movies. Eckhart and British character actor Bill Nighy (Shaun of the Dead; Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest) are the headliners among a cast of unknowns in a cheesy Underworld/Legion mash-up of some kind. Based on the "Unpublished" graphic novel by actor and Underworld writer Kevin Grevioux, I, Frankenstein is conceptually interesting, but...

Personally, I haven't seen a trailer ever work so hard to convince audiences to stay away from what looks to be an absolute piece of Winter Cinema Garbage.



I don't know if it's the ridiculous dialogue ("Frankenstein must be destroyed!")*; the atrocious CGI FX (1997 called, they want their Macs back) or Eckhart's impersonation of Christian Bale's Batman... Well, they all contribute to what looks like traditional January/February studio crap dump. It makes me glad they waited until after Halloween. Both Eckhart and Nighy are better than this. I just hope they invite me to the latest summer house it bought them.

*


More, anon.
Prospero

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