My Review of Frankenstein (2025)

 

Written And Directed by Guillermo del Toro

The Creature (to Captain Anderson): "My maker told his tale, then I will tell you mine."

If ever there was a film that needed a full theatrical release instead going down the Netflix route, it was this one. It's seriously a shame this didn't go that way because this would definitely be a Nosferatu (2024) monster hit.

Broken into three parts, we started off with the Prelude. This part was somewhat the conclusion to the story between Victor Frankenstein (Oscar Isaac) and The Creature (Jacob Elordi). The Creature was trashing a ship in a bid to get revenge on his creator. Then there was Captain Anderson (Lars Mikkelsen). He had the pleasure to hear both perspectives.

Let's start with Victor's Tale, shall we? We got a look into his younger days as a boy (Christian Convery). He had a strict father, Leopold (Charles Dance) and a loving mother, Claire (Mia Goth) and a younger brother named, William. Leopold preferred William over Victor and the latter was obsessed with stopping death.

Anyways, the years passed and William (Felix Kammerer) had a fiancée named Lady Elizabeth Harlander (Mia Goth). Elizabeth forged something of a connection with Victor while the latter inadvertently killed her uncle, Henrich (Christoph Waltz). Oh and there was The Creature himself.

Yes, we saw the dynamic between Victor and The Creature and it's one where the latter was the more sympathetic of the two. There were times when Victor's impatience with The Creature got so bad that Elizabeth found herself thoroughly disgusted with his mistreatment. Of course,Victor would then try to kill The Creature, only for the latter to be immortal.

As for The Creature's Tale, it's a bit shorter than Victor's but just as engaging. His friendship with a blind old man (David Bradley) was one of the nicest moments in the film. The blind man did everything with The Creature that Victor failed to do but sadly, it was also a relationship that ended in tragedy.

Speaking of tragedy, what should've been William and Elizabeth's wedding ended up being their demise as Victor and The Creature's conflict created such a disaster around them. I mean, it's definitely all Victor's fault, which was a realisation that he came too, albeit much too late.

Those final few minutes with Victor and The Creature were some of the best from the movie. A beautiful culmination of their volatile relationship as one of them died and the other lived, while choosing something other than revenge. The final shot in particular was just beautiful.

- Andrew Garfield was originally signed up to play The Creature before being replaced with Jacob Elordi.

- Mia Goth did double duty as both Baroness Claire Frankenstein and Lady Elizabeth Harlander. I'm genuinely surprised they didn't go down The Bride route with her as well. Charles Dance previously appeared in Victor Frankenstein (2015).

- Standout music: The score from Alexandre Desplat was exquisite. 

- Chronology: 1857 in the North Pole as well as Europe for the majority of the film.

Frankenstein (2025) quite frankly, turned out to be a massive triumph. It's absolutely gorgeous and beautifully Gothic to look at. The performances from Oscar Isaac, Jacob Elordi and Mia Goth are on fine form and Guillermo del Toro wrote a fantastic script and directed the hell out of it. I loved this movie.

Rating: 9 out of 10