Victor Frankenstein breathes new life into Mary Shelley’s classic tale

McAvoy and Radcliffe are clearly having a ball playing these characters, and director Paul McGuigan matches their goofball energy in the first two-thirds of the picture as they perform their icky experiments and stay one step ahead of an obsessed copper (Spectre’s Andrew Scott).

What I can’t get over is how utterly tiresome this film is and how it doesn’t ever seem to justify its existence in any sort of creativity or ingenuity that sets it apart from not only any Frankenstein film before it, let alone even a standard period horror film. The “twist” adds nothing new to the film that I couldn’t have gotten from an older, more iconic Frankenstein film. To an extent, yes, just to a much lesser extent. That’s good! You’ve saved Daniel Radcliffe and your reward is to watch the Victor Frankenstein trailer. Here, the set dressing really gets in the way.

Here, Radcliffe’s Igor is a hunchbacked circus freak with a brilliant scientific mind and a knack for medicine. McGuigan has admitted that the whole reason he found himself interested in Victor Frankenstein was because its story was one of friendship and passion rather simply consisting of Victor and Igor chasing down their barbaric creation. The biggest issue is that when the monster does finally arrive, the script has robbed it of any mystery and provided too much motivation, backstory and identity.

As mentioned previously, McAvoy and Radcliffe are actually great sports with the material, and have showed up to play, if not exactly work. But Victor Frankenstein makes up for all of those, breathing new life into Mary Shelley’s classic tale of mortal man overreaching his bounds. Radcliffe does put forth his most convincing effort since the final “Harry Potter” film, but does that really mean much if the character isn’t interesting? Hot on their trail is Scotland Yard’s Insp.

Victor Frankenstein will be released on December 3rd 2015.