johnlink ranks I, FRANKENSTEIN (2014)
You ever start a movie you know will be bad? There must be a masochistic side of me. Or maybe I just think that one of these CGI-loaded monsterfests will one day give us something good. But I watched I, FRANKENSTEIN, every single minute of it. And I’m here to tell you: Don’t make the same mistake I did. I should mention, too, that this posted up earlier in the month over at THE IPC for a particularly odoriferous contest he runs on the regular.
I watched I, FRANKENSTEIN (2014) on 1.14.15. It was my first viewing of the film.
It probably isn’t a good sign for your movie if your wife turns to you in the first five seconds and says “Wait… I didn’t know this was an animated movie.”
And, no, it isn’t an animated movie. The CGI used to bring us a series of snow-capped mountains just looks so fake that you might mistake them for something created for FROZEN.
I, FRANKENSTEIN doesn’t get much better from there. We are given a three minute whirlwind tour of the source novel and we learn that the doctor hunted the monster in the cold and died and that the monster brought him home to bury him (which he does even though he has no concept of humanity). Then some demons come to collect him because they want his rise-from-the-dead power. But that turns out okay, because some gargoyles change from stone into man-form and save him and send the demons back to hell.
The gargoyles take the Monster (played, by the way, by Aaron Eckhart) to their leader (Miranda Otto). She feels bad for him and names him Adam and gives him weapons to fight the demons and then gets mad when he leaves. Her main henchgargoyle (Jai Courtney) doesn’t like Adam either. Or maybe he is just pissed off that he is stuck in this movie.
Then we flash forward a few hundred years to present day. Adam/Monster is still wandering around killing demons. The gargoyles see him and bring him back to their home. Now they really don’t like him because he is fighting them in the open as opposed to, you know, flying around the skyline of a major city. Nobody sees the gargoyles of course. Not because they have a power or anything, but because… you know… it’s a dumb movie.
We learn that there is a prince of darkness (Bill Nighy) who wants to reanimate the dead and use them as houses for his demons’ souls in hell. He uses a human doctor (Yvonne Strahovski) to try and bring rats from the dead, but would rather use Dr. Frankenstein’s original journal (which the gargoyles keep hidden in their lair) to teach him how to do what the doctor did. The gargoyles don’t destroy the journal- presumably because they are stupid – and it becomes the thing everyone wants.
Then they all fight, with Adam/Monster fighting both sides at one point, and lots of demons go to hell and lots of gargoyles go to heaven and then Adam/Monster and the female doctor seem to fall in love kind of.
Does that make the movie sound idiotic? I don’t think it really does it justice in the idiotic department. There are loads of problems.
-Adam/Monster is way too pretty. Aaron Eckhart is supposed to be scary because he has a scar on his face and people in a nightclub look at him funny. Then this idea of him being ugly is mostly abandoned and he looks like a super model with a scar:
-When Jai Courtney looks bored and guilty for being too good of an actor for your movie, then your movie has some credibility issues.
-This movie was not good when it had less species of monsters and was called VAN HELSING.
-The CGI is atrocious:
-There is nothing specific about the locations in this movie. Everything is generic.
-The monster is supposed to have no soul and be evil and learn to have a soul – or something- by the end of the movie. Either that or he always had a soul. But if he always had a soul, then the entire plot of the movie is rendered moot because that would mean the demons’ plans were flawed for thousands of years. I’m not sure which of those two possibilities is worse. That a monster LEARNS how to get a soul, or that the movie hinges on the bad guys being record-setting levels of stupid.
Alright, I’m all done. This movie is brutal.
SCORES
FILM; 3; MOVIE: 3; ACTING: 4; WRITING: 2: BONUS: -1
Negative bonus point for the unbearable CGI.
3+3+4+2-1=11
FINAL SCORE: 2.75 out of 10
johnlinkmovies 
Very dull. Also makes me wonder what the hell Eckhart did to his agent. Good review.
Eckhart deserves much, much, much better.