This may be someone's idea of the movie being the best adaptation of Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein" novel, but you can't prove it by me. It does start out convincingly enough but eventually goes off the rails with the creation of the Bride of Frankenstein using the same method that brought Robert De Niro to life as the Frankenstein Monster. You know, I had to laugh when the actor made his first appearance as the creature. A better choice might have been an unknown talent at the time because De Niro's celebrity comes through and it didn't quite work for me; I just kept seeing a disfigured De Niro in an uncharacteristic role.
The thing that made no sense to me was the manner in which Victor Frankenstein (Kenneth Branagh) decided to bring Elizabeth (Helena Bonham Carter) back to life. Assuming one could use a combination of some liquid suspension and electric eels to shock a dead body back to life, why take the long way around and chop up that body and mesh it with the body parts of another individual? Why not just use the shock treatment on the original subject without mutilating it? And even then, the disfigurement of Elizabeth's face apparently appeared to be done for shock value and no other discernible reason.
Perhaps the story's best takeaway is the pathos involved with The Creature bemoaning his fate, a tortured in spirit monster who harbors love and rage in his heart at the same time. In that respect, the picture's finale remains true to the premise of the story, that the creation of human life from the deceased can only result in an abomination. I will say this though, the movie inspired me to seek out the Mary Shelley novel that introduced Victor Frankenstein, et al, to the literary world. No strange coincidence, as the book was on a left over display of Halloween inspired material at my local library. Preferably I would have liked to read the book first before seeing the picture, but in this case, it probably doesn't matter all that much.
The thing that made no sense to me was the manner in which Victor Frankenstein (Kenneth Branagh) decided to bring Elizabeth (Helena Bonham Carter) back to life. Assuming one could use a combination of some liquid suspension and electric eels to shock a dead body back to life, why take the long way around and chop up that body and mesh it with the body parts of another individual? Why not just use the shock treatment on the original subject without mutilating it? And even then, the disfigurement of Elizabeth's face apparently appeared to be done for shock value and no other discernible reason.
Perhaps the story's best takeaway is the pathos involved with The Creature bemoaning his fate, a tortured in spirit monster who harbors love and rage in his heart at the same time. In that respect, the picture's finale remains true to the premise of the story, that the creation of human life from the deceased can only result in an abomination. I will say this though, the movie inspired me to seek out the Mary Shelley novel that introduced Victor Frankenstein, et al, to the literary world. No strange coincidence, as the book was on a left over display of Halloween inspired material at my local library. Preferably I would have liked to read the book first before seeing the picture, but in this case, it probably doesn't matter all that much.