How about I, Frankenstein?
Good morning everyone, today on “What to play tonight?” I suggest a movie, “I, Frankenstein”. A touch of background, I was a child of the 90’s when Mystery Science Theatre 3000 (mst3k) was still on TV. Every weekend my Dad and I would watch 1-2 episodes of the show and it was a wonderful time. Mst3k for those who are too young to have heard of it is a show about mocking bad movies. From these years of watching mst3k, I grew a love for terrible movies, hence “I, Frankenstein.”
I’m sure you’re curious as to what, “I, Frankenstein” is about. “I, Frankenstein” is about Frankenstein’s monster, later named Adam, discovering who he is. It’s all about self discovery, well kinda. Meanwhile, God and Satan are having another one of their tiffs. As they do. God is being championed by massive gargoyles (because, reasons…) and Satan has unleashed 666 legions of demons (because, SYMBOLISM!) upon the world. This started some couple thousand years ago, and there are still demons and gargoyles fighting today. Adam gets attacked by demons, gargoyles find him, arm him, exposition at him, and send him on his way, only to continue to be hunted by demons. Eventually, Adam starts hunting down the demons, gargoyles don’t like it, so they bring him in, the demons attack, lots of gargoyles die, etc, etc…
I’m sure you’re wondering why the demon are’s interested in Adam. Well, this actually the only part of this movie I like. The Demon Prince has this great plan of reanimating a bunch of corpses and having demons possess them. That’s really cool! Think about it, an army of demon powered Frankenstein monsters! That’s probably the only reason the movie got green lighted. They even got Shaun’s step-Dad, Bill Nighy, to play the Demon Prince. It was an awesome idea! Execution needed a bit of work though.
Now how “I, Frankenstein” fails is many fold, first Adam is a git! He really is unlikeable, unrelatable and just difficult to work with. Second, the dialogue is just atrocious at times, the gargoyles when in human form act awkward. As they speak their lines and drizzle acting on top from time to time. It’s just off putting. Worse still it reminds me of me trying to act…and I’m not particularly good at it.
So as you can gather this is an action movie with cool supernatural creatures. There are a couple things I’d like to bring up. First, why don’t the gargoyles use guns? It’s established in the movie the ONLY thing needed to kill a demon is something with the symbol of the gargoyles etched upon it. That’s it. Why not scratch that into the side or front of bullet rounds? Time consuming, but it don’t look like they are doing much, lounging around the cathedral all day and night. Blade did it, why can’t these guys. Guns would give them the advantage over the demon’s larger numbers.
The other issue is not only Adam a git, but everyone is! Frankenstein tries to murder Adam, and then dies himself; the demons keep attacking him instead of just trying to talk to him. I know Adam’s a bit off but you’ve got a few hundred years just give it a shot. Then the Queen of the Gargoyles, she’s a very flippant…er, woman, gargoyle, thing?
I don’t like her. She’s the least likeable person in the movie. One minute, ‘all life is sacred we must not kill Adam,’ then ‘capture him! A cop died and it’s kinda related to him. Yeah I know he’s killing demons but he should be more subtle about it.’ Not twenty minutes later she orders her gargoyles to fight demons in the middle of the street! Seriously, she said, “we fight in the shadows.” Which is very much not the case as we never see Gargoyles fight in shadows they are always out in the open, breaking property, ripping demons in half with giant battle axes and also being really big.
She also it kind of dumb. I does not even know the main bad guys mansion is around 5-10 blocks from their holy citadel. It’s not hidden, it’s pretty big, and there is a several mile hole in the ground below it. She should be on the offensive, researching odd occurrences, possible demon sightings, do work son! Adam was able to discover the awesome demon plan in less then a day. If I was in charge, the gargoyles would've won by now. Put me in coach, I'm ready!
After Adam finds out the Demon's plans he returns to tell the Gargoyles. Before he can tell her though, she berates him for being uncontrollable and a monster. Not an explanation later she says, “Adam, we’re your friends…” WHAT!? No you can’t do that, you just told him he is evil. Then Adam leaves, and what do you know she orders her second in command to kill him. Just kill him, burn Frankenstein’s notes.
Sure enough Adam kills the second in command. This angers the Gargoyles so much that en masse they attack him. Well in all actuality he brings them to the bad guy’s mansion from their citadel. Note: he’s on foot and jogging. I thought maybe the Queen put it together that he was bringing them to the demon hideout. Nope. He gets there kills a couple demons and the Queen has moment and states, “He brought us here.” Like it wasn’t obvious! He wasn’t fighting the gargoyles he at best knocked one unconscious. Just ugh this lady…she just, I just didn’t like her I don’t get it. She doesn’t do anything, makes bad decisions and yet we are supposed to believe she has run the Gargoyle campaign against the demons for how many centuries?
Meanwhile the Demon Prince is awesome and I love him. Bill Nighy did a great job portraying the Prince and his frustration and did something unexpected. A demon returns with bad news. Bill gets understandably angry, starts yelling and shifting into his greater form. The demon starts shrinking away. Then Bill settles down and sends the demon on its way. He didn’t kill him! I couldn’t believe it, a star for that, that’s not what I was expecting. They didn’t make the big bad, completely evil. Maybe a bit of a jerk, but not ruthless it gave him depth. In fact the only time he killed anyone was at the end to get the scientist lady’s assistant was killed for refusing to make a Frankenstein monster. Stating she now had someone to work on and if she wants him back to bring him back, BRILLIANT!
I will be honest, I wasn’t paying 100% attention to the movie as it was going. I had my crafting table out and I was working on my suit of scalemail armor. So I might have missed a thing here and there, but over all I think I got it. “I, Frankenstein” wasn’t bad background noise, it doesn’t need your attention.
So I don’t know. There are things that I like about the movie and several that I don’t. Overall, I give it a solid ‘meh. Watch it if you like bad movies, just want background noise or are drunk. Otherwise, you could probably give it a pass. Still it’s on Netflix.
Quote of the week:
“Takenoko is beautifully made, you just want to put all the pieces in your mouth; at once. So what’s the problem? Unfortunately fundamentally it’s just incredibly boring…” – Matt
