Review of Victor Frankenstein

There doesn't appear to be a lot of love for this latest reimagining of the classic Mary Shelley novel. Personally, I liked it, so maybe I caught it in just the right frame of mind. Placing Victor Frankenstein's (James McAvoy) assistant Igor (Daniel Radcliffe) as the central character was an interesting twist, by making him an equal in the quest to forge human life from the inanimate. I love the old time horror flicks of the Thirties and Forties in which some pseudo-scientific jargon is used to describe what the mad scientist was attempting to achieve. This story didn't go too far out on a limb in that regard, utilizing the theory of converting electrical energy into a biochemical equivalent, with a rabid, gone wrong chimpanzee as Frankenstein's first attempt. I've come on board as a tentative McAvoy fan ever since he portrayed the disturbed, personality riddled character Kevin Wendell Crumb in 2016's "Split" and the follow up in 2019, "Glass". Here he goes a bit more over the top in execution, almost verging on bat-s--t crazy in order to achieve his daring vision. A major component to the story is how Victor felt guilt and remorse over the death of his brother years earlier, and his resolve to correct the imbalance so to speak, by creating new life in his honor. The creature that resulted, the monster itself, was a grotesque amalgam of collected body parts, a standard feature of these numerous Frankenstein stories. I always wonder why the scientist couldn't simply take a deceased person and work the magic on him or her, but I guess then the story loses some of it's luster. This latest reinterpretation of the Frankenstein mythos combines elements of the 1931 movie original with a love story sub-plot that's visually exciting and well crafted. Fans of the original novel ought to give it a try.