Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (film)

Frankenstein
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Kenneth Branagh[1]
Produced by	Francis Ford Coppola
Screenplay by	Steph Lady Frank Darabont
Based on	Frankenstein  by Mary Shelley
Starring	Robert De Niro Kenneth Branagh Tom Hulce Helena Bonham Carter Ian Holm John Cleese Aidan Quinn
Music by	Patrick Doyle
Cinematography	Roger Pratt
Editing by	Andrew Marcus
Studio	American Zoetrope Japan Satellite Broadcasting
Distributed by	TriStar Pictures
Release dates	October 12, 1994 (1994-10-12)
Running time	123 minutes[2]
Country	United States Japan
Language	English
Budget	$45 million
Box office	$112,006,296

Mary Shelley's Frankenstein is a 1994 American horror film directed by Kenneth Branagh and starring Robert De Niro and Branagh. The picture was produced on a budget of $45 million and is considered the most faithful film adaptation of Mary Shelley's novel Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus.^[1]

Plot

The film opens with a few words by Mary Shelley:

"I busied myself to think of a story which would speak to the mysterious fears of our nature and awaken thrilling horror; one to make the reader dread to look around, to curdle the blood, and quicken the beatings of the heart."

The story begins in the year 1794. Captain Walton is leading a daring expedition to reach the North Pole. While their ship is trapped in the ice of the Arctic Sea, Walton and his crew discover a man traveling across the Arctic on his own. In the distance, a loud moaning can be heard. When the man sees how obsessed Walton is with reaching the North Pole, he asks, "Do you share my madness?" The man then reveals that his name is Victor Frankenstein and begins his tale.

There is a flashback to Victor's childhood in Geneva as the son of the wealthy Baron and Caroline Frankenstein. In his childhood, Victor's parents have adopted Elizabeth, who will become the love of Victor's life. Years later, Caroline dies giving birth to his brother William. Sometime before going off to the university at Ingolstadt, a grief-stricken Victor vows on his mother's grave that he will find a way to conquer death. On the night of his graduation, Victor and Elizabeth promise to marry when Victor returns from his studies. At university, Victor's previous studies with the works of alchemists such as Paracelsus, Albertus Magnus, and Cornelius Agrippa make him unpopular with certain professors. However, he finds a friend in Henry Clerval and a mentor in Professor Waldman. Victor comes to believe that the only way to cheat death is to create life. Professor Waldman warns Victor not to follow through with his theory; he tested it once, but ended his experiments because they resulted in an "abomination." While performing vaccinations, Waldman is killed by a patient who thinks the doctors are trying to poison him. After Waldman is buried, Victor breaks into the professor's laboratory, takes his notes, then begins to work on his own creation. Victor spends months working on creating a living, breathing creature, giving it dead body parts from various sources, including the body of the murderer, Waldman's own brain, a new leg in place of the missing one and a new eye to replace the damaged one. He is so obsessed with his work that not even a cholera outbreak tears him from it. Late one night, Victor finally gives his creation life, but he recoils from it in horror and renounces his experiments. That night, the creature escapes, running off to the wilderness. He spends months hiding in the woods, living in an unwitting family's barn. As time progresses, the creature learns to read and speak, and even tries to win the family's love, but his efforts are in vain. Through a journal that the creature finds in the coat that he fled with, he learns of the circumstances of his creation and that Victor Frankenstein is responsible. He then burns down the family's abandoned cottage and heads to Geneva, vowing revenge on his creator. Victor, who believes his creation destroyed, returns to Geneva with the intent of marrying Elizabeth. He finds there that his little brother William (Ryan Smith) has been murdered. Justine Moritz, a servant of the Frankenstein household, is framed for the crime and hanged by a lynch mob. That night Victor is approached by his creation, who tells him to meet him on the mountain. Realizing that the creature murdered his brother, Victor goes with the intent of destroying his creation, but is no match for his enhanced speed and strength. The creature asks who the people were that Victor used to build him. Victor replies that they were merely raw materials, but the creature replies that he knew how to read, speak and play the recorder; he didn't learn how to, he remembered how.

Rather than killing his creator, the creature insists that Victor make a bride for him. If he does this, then he promises to quit humanity forever with Victor never having to see him again. To ensure the safety of the rest of his family, Victor begins gathering the tools he used to create life, but when the creature insists he use Justine's body to make the bride, Victor breaks his promise. Enraged, the creature once more vows revenge, saying, "If you deny me my wedding night, I will be with you on yours!".

Victor and Elizabeth are married. En route to their honeymoon, Victor and Elizabeth are flanked by body guards. Meanwhile, Victor's father dies while the creature watches over him. That night Victor takes every precaution to defend his new family, but the creature finds them anyway and gains access to Elizabeth's room. He uses his hand to prevent her crying out, then despite her pleas he kills her by ripping out her heart as Victor searches the house. Victor comes back to find the monster holding Elizabeth's heart saying, "I keep my promises!". He tosses Elizabeth's body off the bed; her head slams into a nearby table, and her hair is set aflame by candles there. The creature flees out of the window amidst gunfire. Victor frantically extinguishes the fire.

Victor races home to bring Elizabeth back to life. Repulsed by what he intends to do, Henry tries to stop him. Victor argues that his father would have done the same for his mother. After Henry tells him that Baron Frankenstein is dead, Victor believes there is nothing left to lose. "Nothing but your soul," Henry replies. Once he stitches Elizabeth back together using parts from Justine's body, Elizabeth awakes. Victor has a short-lived joy having her come back to life. The monster arrives and is expecting his repayment. Victor and the monster then fight for her affections, but are cut short by Elizabeth realizing her hideous form and burning herself and the mansion to the ground.

The story returns to the Arctic Circle. Victor tells Walton that he has been pursuing his creation for months with the intent of killing him. Soon after relating his story, Victor succumbs to pneumonia and dies. After a word with his crew, Walton hears a noise coming from the room he left Frankenstein's body in. There they find the creature weeping over his creator's dead body. They take Frankenstein's body and prepare a funeral pyre for him. The ceremony is interrupted when the ice around the ship begins to crack. The creature takes the torch and finishes the ceremony, burning himself alive with his creator's body. Walton, having seen the result of Frankenstein's obsession, puts his own aside and orders the ship to return home.

Cast

Reception

Critical response

Critical reviews were mixed; the film currently holds a 40% "Rotten" rating on Rotten Tomatoes.^[4]

Roger Ebert gave the film two and a half stars out of four, writing: "I admired the scenes with De Niro [as the Creature] so much I'm tempted to give Mary Shelley's Frankenstein a favorable verdict. But it's a near miss. The Creature is on target, but the rest of the film is so frantic, so manic, it doesn't pause to be sure its effects are registered."^[5] Janet Maslin wrote, "Branagh is in over his head. He displays neither the technical finesse to handle a big, visually ambitious film nor the insight to develop a stirring new version of this story. Instead, this is a bland, no-fault Frankenstein for the '90s, short on villainy but loaded with the tragically misunderstood. Even the Creature (Robert De Niro), an esthetically challenged loner with a father who rejected him, would make a dandy guest on any daytime television talk show."^[6]

Conversely, James Berardinelli of Reelviews.net gave the film three out of four stars, writing: "Mary Shelley's Frankenstein may not be the definitive version of the 1818 novel, and the director likely attempted more than is practical for a two-hour film, but overambition is preferable to the alternative, especially if it results — as in this case — in something more substantial than Hollywood's typical, fitfully entertaining fluff."^[7]

Box office

The film did disappointing business upon its U.S. theatrical release, grossing only $22 million, but did well in global markets where it grossed $90 million.^[8][9]

Accolades

Other media

The film had a pinball table made based on it,^[10] as well as a Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis game (the latter of which was by Sony Imagesoft), following a platform-style format. A Sega CD game was also produced by the same company that had a more adventure-based format that would sometimes switch to a fighting game.

References

External links

• Mary Shelley's Frankenstein at the Internet Movie Database
• Mary Shelley's Frankenstein at Box Office Mojo
• Mary Shelley's Frankenstein at Rotten Tomatoes