Subject: REVIEW: MARY SHELLEY'S FRANKENSTEIN

From: [email-masked] (Bryant Frazer)
Date: Fri, 28 Oct 1994 15:48:19 GMT

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			 MARY SHELLEY'S FRANKENSTEIN
		       A film review by Bryant Frazer
			Copyright 1994 Bryant Frazer

     If you know Kenneth Branagh's work, you know he has the
irrepressible penchant for grand themes and sense of high drama that
lend themselves as well to spirited adaptations of Shakespeare as to
unabashed pop melodrama.  So when his much-heralded adaptation of
FRANKENSTEIN first hits the screen, you find yourself a little queasy
with anticipation. After all the box-office hits and Orson Welles
comparisons, isn't the boy due to let us down? But the potential, and
the promise....

     The performances, of course, are grand. Branagh directs himself
with panache, and DeNiro is, even under his hideous creature makeup,
unmistakably DeNiro. As the monster, he is both menacing and undeniably
tragic, but no real surprise here. Still, the film could have been a
disaster had the role been given to a less-talented actor.  Tom Hulce
reminds one immediately of his role in AMADEUS, but his presence is
welcome. Helena Bonham Carter at first has little to do, but by the end
of the film has given an affecting performance in a role which could
easily have been maudlin, overbaked, or--worse--inconsequential.  John
Cleese truly has little to do, but his presence, too, charms the film
fan.

     Sadly (but perhaps unavoidably), the first third of the film seems
a bit of a mess. Specifically, Branagh's task is to introduce the
character of Victor Frankenstein, establish his obsession with the very
nature of life and death, set up the intellectual and ideological
conflict between Victor and the academic establishment, and somehow
manage to build up to a rousing creation scene ("It's alive ...
alive") all within the narrow bounds of the film's first act. So we
have spinning cameras, odd shots through wide-angle lenses, weird jump
cuts and dissolves, all of which propel the story along at a feverish
pitch. Branagh is a virtuoso, but the audience spends this portion of
the film oddly detached. Perhaps it doesn't matter; more or less, we
all know the story.

     The rest is much better. Especially in the final act, Branagh
affords the characters the development and depth that was denied them
early on. It's hard to tell how much of this structure was dictated by
the script and how much was Branagh's work at cutting down the film to
a manageable length--just over two hours, as it happens.  DeNiro's
creature stands in dark and humanitarian contrast to Boris Karloff's
classic Big Dummy, but film buffs who have never read Shelley's novel
may be surprised at how much the original FRANKENSTEIN (and one of its
sequels) dovetails with this one.  At face value, the two films are
very different, but they have many of the same concerns at heart.

     The drama of terror and loss that caps this production of the
story more than makes up for the bland expository scenes that precede
it. Little more needs to be said, except that at least one of Branagh's
wrenching scenes of hypercinema, a public hanging, is among the most
spectacular in film history.

     No, wait--one more thing needs to be said--the score by Patrick
Doyle is not necessarily bad, but it is obtrusive and unwelcome.
Perhaps the SDDS auditorium I saw the film in insinuated the music too
deep into my consciousness, but I kept wishing Branagh and his monster
could just have a quite moment alone, without the damn strings singing
songs of impending doom. Branagh builds up that sense of impending doom
quite credibly without help from the orchestra pit, thank you very
much.

     In total, this is a more restrained and emotionally honest horror
adaptation than Coppola's previous production of BRAM STOKER'S DRACULA
(which any goth aficionado will tell you was anything but). It stands
up well against Branagh's earlier work, but has neither the unbridled
sense of fun that drove DEAD AGAIN or the complete mastery of its
material that made MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING a blast. It does, however,
suggest that Branagh is a filmmaker who is continually extending his
reach and truly seeks to reinterpret source material in a uniquely
cinematic language.

-bf-
-- 
Bryant Frazer
914/631/7155