I, Frankenstein (2014) Directed by Stuart Beattie

It rarely happens that a big mainstream movie is truly a terrible one to watch. After all, it's made with millions and millions of dollars, has a well known and big cast and lots of experienced people both in front and behind the cameras, so how can it be terrible, right? But really, let me just say to you that this truly is one of the absolute worst big mainstream movies that I have seen in a long while.

There is always plenty going on in this movie, yet I for most part felt incredibly bored by all of it. It's because it's all without a good focus, has no good or likable enough characters in it and just never becomes a very interesting or engaging movie, despite its original and pretty awesome sounding concept.

It wasn't just like the movie had a bad and simplistic main story but it had a story that I couldn't care less about. I can't even really tell you what the good guys wanted in this movie, or what the bad buys were trying to achieve, not because of its complex story or convoluted storytelling but because of the simple fact that the movie could barely hold my interest.

The movie never has a pleasant flow to it, which is also really due to the fact that it hardly elaborates on anything and simply glosses over a whole bunch of things, all for the sake of its entertainment and no doubt in an attempt to keep things tight and going. But instead of working out well for the movie its entertainment or pace it works out as something incredibly ineffective. It's an incredibly messy and jumpy feeling movie, with both its story and way of storytelling. Why should I care about a story that doesn't ever elaborate on anything and is lacking in depth and any decent enough developments? And why should a care about characters that I know absolutely nothing about? It takes more than just a few minutes short montage to set anything up, which however is something that this movie just doesn't ever realizes or seems to understand.

Of course everybody knows the Frankenstein creature but this movie changes things so much around that it's basically a totally different character from the Mary Shelley novel and other earlier movies and it's also taking place at totally different places and time periods. I therefor strongly do feel that they should have taken the time to also reinvent and set up the main character again for this particular movie and give him a decent enough background, so we can understand what he's all about.

But another big problem with the main character isn't the fact that he's 'too good' looking or talks and acts too much like a 'normal' human being but that here we have a movie that's taking place in a world that's literally filled with demons and gargoyles and weird magic. The Frankenstein creature suddenly doesn't seem all that special or even that powerful anymore in a world like that, so why are we following him around exactly when there is so much else going on, that potentially could have been something so much more engaging and original as well.

Lots of people say it's an "Underworld" or "Van Helsing" type of movie but it's actually a whole lot more than just that unfortunately. It's like a mixture of "Underworld", "Van Helsing", "Blade", "Constantine", "Hellboy" and the list just goes on and on. Perhaps sounds appealing to some but trust me, it's not a very effective mix. The movie doesn't even work out as decent enough mindless entertainment. The action isn't anything too outstanding and becomes very repetitive as well, after even a short while already. It's also annoying how the movie is heavily relying on its special effects. Nothing wrong with CG action and entertainment but when the movie stops every 5 minutes to show you a new and big CG shot, it becomes a bit tedious and repetitive and simply doesn't impress much anymore, no matter how good the actual CG is looking. It above all things also feels utterly pointless. Most of the CG really wasn't needed for this movie at all and the fact that it's all so pointless causes it to work out as something too distracting, that besides too often slows the movie down as well, despite its attempts to have a very high pace.

A very poorly told and far from exciting or very original movie, that I absolutely hated watching.

3/10

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