Jeffrey Kwitny

I’m so tired of filmmakers attempting to make yet another version of Frankenstein and failing. The writer and director of this one clearly never read Mary Shelley’s novel—or did and thought they could outdo her. They missed the thematic points every step of the way. Too much emphasis on the billionaire’s financial and tech support of Doc Frankenstein’s new startup: bringing life to the dead, clearly an attempt at modernizing Shelley’s story. I’d like to see a version made someday with input from a Shelley scholar. They rewrote Shelley’s story big time, much the way Baz Luhrmann monkeyed with Fitzgerald’s gem, The Great Gatsby. Directors’ hubris. Skip the movie, read the book.

Big disappointment. A couple of scenes made me smile (the dancing bicyclists and the balloon scene at the end), it it was mostly poorly directed (clunky staging) and tedious. Hated the cartoon scenes, and Meryl Streep’s scene was embarrassingly bad.