Subject: REVIEW: MARY SHELLEY'S FRANKENSTEIN

From: [email-masked] (Ben Hoffman)
Date: Mon, 7 Nov 1994 20:53:17 GMT

[Followups directed to rec.arts.movies and rec.arts.sf.movies.  -Moderator]

		        MARY SHELLEY'S FRANKENSTEIN
		       A film review by Ben Hoffman
			Copyright 1994 Ben Hoffman

     As Kenneth Branagh "can do no wrong" in my book, I was shaken to
find that I was dumb-struck by the poorly conceived movie I was
watching.   Everything about it was bad and big and loud and a
hodge-podge.  How could someone as good as Branagh direct and act in a
film so lacking in everything?

     To begin with, "the monster," Robert de Niro.  Why did the film
need a star of his caliber who had comparatively few lines and those
mostly mumbles.   His face was as ugly and off-putting as one could
imagine, filled with oversized sutures for which a surgeon would be
arrested for botching the job.

     Karloff was and looked a hundred times better.   Karloff was
unknown; his first film was in 1916.  Fifteen years later he had some
mild success in The Criminal Code but it was not until his Monster role
that same year in Frankenstein that he became a star.  Did Branagh
choose De Niro because he wanted a "name?"

     If, as Branagh says, the film is about "Love," the love he does
not give his Creation but lavishes instead on Elizabeth (Helena Bonham
Carter), he missed the mark completely.  With perhaps one of the
world's most famous horror stories to work with, Branagh failed.

     Tom Hulce has the role of Dr Frankenstein's friend, while John
Cleese is the doctor who first thought of creating life but gave up the
idea.  Aidin Quinn and Ian Holm are also in the cast.

1.5 Bytes
4 Bytes = Absolutely must see.
3 Bytes = Too good to be missed.
2 Bytes = So so.
1 Byte  = Save your money.

Ben Hoffman