• Home
  • Movies
  • Music
  • TV
  • Video Games
  • Wrestling
  • Topics
  • Latest Comments on Cult of Whatever
Search
Cult of Whatever logo
  • Movies
    Featured
    • The Living Daylights: Timothy Dalton as James Bond

      The Living Daylights is still awesome, thirty-five years later

      By Matthew Martin
      | March 28, 2022
      Movie Blogs
    Recent
    • The Muppet Christmas Carol: Michael Caine as Scrooge

      The Muppet’s Christmas Carol remains the gold standard for the book

      By Matthew Martin
      | December 20, 2022
    • Nightmare Before Christmas 1993 1

      2022’s Christmas Movie Watchlist!

      By Matthew Martin
      | December 18, 2022
    • Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio Poster

      REVIEW: GDT’s Pinocchio is my favorite film of the year!

      By Matthew Martin
      | December 14, 2022
    • Troll: Ine Marie Wilmann as Nora

      REVIEWS: TROLL and TROLL HUNTER -A giant creature double feature!

      By Matthew Martin
      | December 5, 2022
    • Harry with The Hendersons

      Harry and the Hendersons is still awesome, thirty-five years later

      By Matthew Martin
      | December 1, 2022
    • Fantastic Four Poster

      The five best “rogues galleries” in superherodom! (part 3)

      By Matthew Martin
      | November 28, 2022
  • Music
    Random
    • Beach Boys Petsounds

      PET SOUNDS by the Beach Boys is a symphony of harmony and joy

      By Matthew Martin
      | August 2, 2016
      Music Blogs
    Recent
    • The Beatles: Get Back

      What GET BACK reveals about the Beatles

      By Matthew Martin
      | December 15, 2021
    • Simon And Garfunkel at Feyenoord Stadium in Rotterdam1982

      The Boxer is a song about being conned

      By Matthew Martin
      | July 4, 2021
    • Lady Gaga: Chromatica Album Cover

      Lady Gaga’s discography is totally out of order

      By Matthew Martin
      | June 3, 2021
    • Michael Jackson Thriller Album Cover

      Thirty years ago music fans said “Nevermind” to Michael Jackson

      By Matthew Martin
      | March 21, 2021
    • Queen II Album Cover

      On Queen’s The Miracle, and the importance of track ordering

      By Matthew Martin
      | February 16, 2021
    • Linda Paul Mccartney 1976

      50 years ago, McCartney dropped “Lennon” and went solo…

      By Matthew Martin
      | June 5, 2020
  • TV
    Featured
    • Big Sky S03e05: Kylie Bunbury, J. Anthony Pena and Katheryn Winnick as Cassie Dewell, Mo Poppernak and Jenny Hoyt

      Big Sky S03E05 Review: Flesh and Blood - Glamping!

      By Salome G
      | October 22, 2022
      TV Blogs
    Recent
    • Big Sky S03e10: Gang

      Big Sky S03E10 Review: A Thin Layer of Rock – Break time…

      By Salome G
      | December 11, 2022
    • Rick And Morty: S01e03

      Is Beth from Rick and Morty a bigger sociopath than Rick?

      By Jason Collins
      | December 7, 2022
    • Big Sky S03e09: Dedee Pfeiffer and Cree as Denise and Emily

      Big Sky S03E09: Where There’s Smoke There’s Fire – Stalling

      By Salome G
      | December 1, 2022
    • The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special: Dave Bautista and Pom Klementieff as Drax and Mantis

      REVIEW: The GOTG Holiday Special is a sweet prelude to next year’s finale

      By Matthew Martin
      | November 27, 2022
    • The Midnight Club S01: The Gang

      The Midnight Club S1 Review – A series of unfortunate events

      By Salome G
      | November 24, 2022
    • Big Sky S03e08: Reba McEntire as Sunny Barnes

      Big Sky S03E08 Review: Duck Hunting – I love a weirdo.

      By Salome G
      | November 19, 2022
  • Video Games
    Featured
    • Arkham Knight

      Batman: Arkham Knight - A fitting end to a trilogy

      By Tom Farr
      | July 18, 2015
      Video Game Reviews
    Recent
    • Splatoon 3 Screenshot

      A trio of Nintendo Switch reviews!

      By Matthew Martin
      | September 28, 2022
    • Nintendo Switch Logo

      Looking ahead to the Switch 2: Predictions and Wants

      By Matthew Martin
      | August 15, 2022
    • Legend Of Zelda

      Can a Legend of Zelda movie work?

      By Matthew Martin
      | April 6, 2022
    • Super Mario 64

      Which system had the better launch: A battle of four Nintendo consoles

      By Matthew Martin
      | December 1, 2021
    • Luigi's Mansion

      Happy twentieth to Nintendo’s underrated gem, the Gamecube

      By Matthew Martin
      | November 18, 2021
    • Metroid Dread

      Metroid Dread – Post Game analysis and sequel needs

      By Matthew Martin
      | October 29, 2021
  • Wrestling
    Featured
    • AEW All Out 2022: Keith Lee. Anthony Bowens, Max Caster and Billy Gunn

      AEW All Out 2022 - Review and (wild) Speculation!

      By Matthew Martin
      | September 5, 2022
      AEW
    Recent
    • article placeholder

      Which Is Better AEW vs WWE?

      By Coder
      | September 29, 2023
    • article placeholder

      Which Female Wrestler Leaves WWE?

      By Coder
      | September 29, 2023
    • article placeholder

      Which WWE Wrestler Had a Heart Attack?

      By Coder
      | September 29, 2023
    • article placeholder

      Which WWE Legend Recently Died?

      By Coder
      | September 29, 2023
    • article placeholder

      Which WWE Game Has the Best Story Mode?

      By Coder
      | September 29, 2023
    • article placeholder

      Which GM Should I Pick WWE 2K22?

      By Coder
      | September 29, 2023
  • Topics
    • site logo
    Latest
    • Which Is Better AEW vs WWE?
    • Which Female Wrestler Leaves WWE?
    • Which WWE Wrestler Had a Heart Attack?
    • Which WWE Legend Recently Died?
    • Which WWE Game Has the Best Story Mode?
    • Which GM Should I Pick WWE 2K22?

    Sad reflections on Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (the movie)

    By Matthew Martin
    | October 21, 2020
    Movie Blogs

    1994’s Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein is a movie I come back to every five or six years, trying again and again to love it.

    Mary Shelleys Frankenstein Poster

    I love Frankenstein, the original novel. It is my number one favorite fictional book of all time. It’s the perfect blending of science-fiction, horror, thrills, drama, tragedy, and morality play. I have read it and re-read it more times than I can count and the thing that brings me back every time is my love for the prose. Shelley was absolutely brilliant with her word choice and sentence structure. At times it’s like I’m not even reading a novel, but some kind of epic poem. Some of the monster’s soliloquies and the doctor’s monologues are akin to the writings of Job in the Bible, the way the old patriarch waxed poetic about his sorry state in life.

    My two favorite lines in the book (just to illustrate how beautiful the writing is) are:

    “How mutable are our feelings, and how strange is that clinging love we have of life even in the excess of misery!”

    – Victor Frankenstein

    and

    “The fallen angel becomes a malignant devil. Yet even that enemy of God and man had friends and associates in his desolation; I am alone.”

    – Frankenstein’s Monster

    I could praise the book for another thousand words but to shift gears to films, it has always been frustrating that there isn’t a definitive film adaptation.

    Mary Shelley Frankenstein Kenneth Branagh

    Most attempts at it have ditched the framing device of the North Pole explorers, cutting straight to Victor and his quest to play god and make a man, etc. The most famous of these is the 1930’s version starring the great Boris Karloff. That’s a fun movie, but it’s hardly an adaptation. It’s famous more for being famous, for Karloff’s performance, and for the style and spectacle as opposed to how well it translates Shelley’s work.

    The one movie that seems to have “tried” to be an adaptation is the movie that puts those intentions right there in the title: “Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.”

    In a lot of ways, Kenneth Branagh’s film IS the most faithful version. On paper, it checks a lot of the boxes you’d want from a movie “adaptation” of the book.

    1. It uses the North Pole expedition as a framing device, allowing that to serve as the cautionary tale which drives the middle of the story.
    2. It allows the monster to be presented as a freak of, not nature, but human malfeasance.
    3. It spends time examining the immorality of a man playing god, making another living creature, abandoning it, then reaping what he sowed.

    Easily the best part of the movie is Robert DeNiro who, at the time. was already slipping into the same quagmire that hurt Al Pacino’s 1990’s career, namely a willingness to make movies that were “beneath him.” Under the circumstances, this could have been a movie where he phoned it in or gave a hammy, over the top performance worthy of the Razzies. Instead, he brings it. He plays the part of the monster with the right balance of pathos, rage, confusion, and self-loathing. It’s not a perfect recreation of the monster as depicted in Shelley’s work, but it’s the most faithful take that we’ve had among major film releases.

    Mary Shelley Frankenstein Robert De Niro

    As is the screenplay. By that I mean it’s the “most faithful” among major film releases. In this case, however, that’s not saying much. The biggest change from book to film is actually one I didn’t mind. Obviously, in a perfect world, I’d prefer faithfulness, but if you’re going to make a change, adding the bride of Frankenstein is not a bad one. It’s the kind of plot element that seems like the book is almost getting to when you read it, only for Shelley simply to “not go there.” I don’t know if it just never crossed her mind to have Victor try to reanimate Elizabeth after the monster kills her, or if she debated it and decided it would be too redundant. Either way, she never went there, but the movie does, and I don’t mind it.

    Mary Shelley Frankenstein Kenneth Branagh Helena Bonham Carter

    The screenplay is not the movie’s problem. Frank Darabont is credited as the writer and his comments on the movie highlight the greatest issue I have with it…

    There’s a weird doppleganger effect when I watch the movie. It’s kind of like the movie I wrote, but not at all like the movie I wrote. It has no patience for subtlety. It has no patience for the quiet moments. It has no patience period. It’s big and loud and blunt and rephrased by the director at every possible turn. Cumulatively, the effect was a totally different movie.

    I don’t know why Branagh needed to make this big, loud film … the material was subtle. Shelley’s book was way out there in a lot of ways, but it’s also very subtle. I don’t know why it had to be this operatic attempt at filmmaking. Shelley’s book is not operatic, it whispers at you a lot. The movie was a bad one. That was my Waterloo. That’s where I really got my ass kicked most as a screenwriter … [Branagh] really took the brunt of the blame for that film, which was appropriate. That movie was his vision entirely. If you love that movie you can throw all your roses at Ken Branagh’s feet. If you hated it, throw your spears there too, because that was his movie.

    Kenneth Branagh is a really great actor and he’s a really good director. He’s a man who has a particular goal in mind for his movies and he achieves those goals, rarely with compromise. It’s just, for me, his goals with this movie don’t mesh with what I love about Frankenstein. I read Frankenstein and I’m captivated by the tragedy and genuinely moved by the prose.

    Branagh’s Frankenstein allows no time for any emotions to seep in. It’s cut like an MTV music video, overlaid with bombastic sound effects, and shot with obnoxious camera angles. It’s loud, garish, hammy, and too over the top to take seriously.

    I would love to hear Branagh’s thoughts on why he made the movie the way he did, because as I say, he’s not a bad director. He’s not Uwe Boll. He’s good enough to make this movie faithful in tone but he deliberately made it the way he did instead. It baffles me.

    And still, over a quarter-century later, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein remains the “most faithful” adaptation Hollywood has released.

    That makes me sad.

    Tags

    FrankensteinHorror Movies

    COMMENTS

    Please read our Commenting Policy before you join in with the discussion.

    Note: If you have email notifications enabled, please check your email spam folders to ensure emails are not missed.

    Subscribe
    Connect withD
    I allow to create an account
    When you login first time using a Social Login button, we collect your account public profile information shared by Social Login provider, based on your privacy settings. We also get your email address to automatically create an account for you in our website. Once your account is created, you'll be logged-in to this account.
    DisagreeAgree
    Notify of
    guest

    Connect withD
    I allow to create an account
    When you login first time using a Social Login button, we collect your account public profile information shared by Social Login provider, based on your privacy settings. We also get your email address to automatically create an account for you in our website. Once your account is created, you'll be logged-in to this account.
    DisagreeAgree
    guest

    2 Comments
    Inline Feedbacks
    View all comments
    JordainaD
    Jordaina
    2 years ago

    I couldn’t agree more about Robert DeNiro playing a great part. He sold it! I was also a fan of the book more than the movie. I have only watched it a few times though.

    0
    Reply
    KkelieD
    Kkelie
    2 years ago
    Reply to  Jordaina

    I thought it was a marvelous part played by Robert DeNiro too. He could have really stuck it up because I too believe it wasn’t his best time for movies. I watched it numerous times and I thought it was great. I disagree with the review.

    0
    Reply

    You might also like

    • Why the current trend for horror remakes should be encouraged, not shunned…

      By Henry Higgins
      | March 31, 2015
    • Sleepy Hollow is still awesome…twenty years later

      By Matthew Martin
      | October 22, 2019
    • The Nightmare Before Christmas is still awesome, twenty-five years later…

      By Matthew Martin
      | December 19, 2018
    • The Horrors of Professional Wrestling

      By Iron Jung
      | December 2, 2010

    FIND THE TOPICS YOU WANT...

    Movie Topics

    Recommended for you

    • REVIEW: GDT’s Pinocchio is my favorite film of the year!

      By Matthew Martin
      | December 14, 2022
    • REVIEWS: TROLL and TROLL HUNTER -A giant creature double feature!

      By Matthew Martin
      | December 5, 2022
    • Harry and the Hendersons is still awesome, thirty-five years later

      By Matthew Martin
      | December 1, 2022
    • The five best “rogues galleries” in superherodom! (part 3)

      By Matthew Martin
      | November 28, 2022
    • Spirited Away remains Studio Ghibli’s “greatest” film

      By Matthew Martin
      | October 16, 2022
    • Read the Book Instead: The most disappointing book-to-film adaptations

      By Oliver Johnston
      | September 20, 2021
    • About Us
    • Contact Us
    • Privacy Policy
    • Affiliate Disclosure
    • Cookie Policy and Settings
    • Terms of Use
    • Photo Credits
    • RSS
    All Cult of Whatever articles, logos, illustrations and graphics are copyright CultOfWhatever.com. All other trademarks, logos and copyrights are the property of their respective owners. © 2023 CultOfWhatever. All Rights Reserved.
    • facebook
    • twitter
    wpDiscuz