I, Frankenstein 3D Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		2.0
Video		4.5
Audio		4.5
Extras		2.0
Overall		2.5

I, Frankenstein 3D Blu-ray Movie Review

Movie bad.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman May 4, 2014

While it’s notable that the influence of one Dr. Victor Frankenstein continues to inform—or perhaps haunt—popular culture, it may be for unexpected reasons. Both graphic novelist Kevin Grevioux (Underworld: The Legacy Collection) and screenplay adapter Stuart Beattie have taken a bit of the good doctor’s quest to heart, constructing their own creations out of bits and scraps of preexisting material. The “monster” in I, Frankenstein therefore bears less resemblance to Frankensteins of yore than to a sort of bizarre mash up of Sheriff Buford Pusser in The Walking Tall Trilogy and a sullen male version of Buffy of Vampire Slayer fame, along with just a dash of Highlander’s Connor MacLeod. For a few minutes in the opening sequence of I, Frankenstein, it almost seems like the film is going to be a fun reinvention of the Frankenstein mythos, with a neat twist that might have the monster reanimating the doctor. Unfortunately, that promising premise is but dust in the wind, for Frankenstein remains dead after a brief prelude, and his creation goes on to a seemingly immortal quest to rid the world of demons, who just happen to show up at exactly the moment when the monster is preparing a grave for his creator. At this point, it becomes patently obvious that I, Frankenstein has little to no connection with Mary Shelley’s iconic character, and is instead just the latest in what has become a mini-franchise of “slayer” films with legendary leading characters, films like Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter 3D and Jack the Giant Slayer 3D.

Frankenstein’s monster (Aaron Eckhart) narrates the film and presents the character’s backstory in the first few minutes. In this iteration, the doctor has not been a very nurturing “father”, and the monster has a bit of an adolescent rage building up which results in the monster murdering Frankenstein’s wife. That sets the doctor on a quest to kill the monster, though it’s the doctor himself who ends up perishing in an arctic wilderness. It’s at this point—with the monster looking over a deceased Doctor Frankenstein—that there might have been a nice twist on the traditional story, with dueling reanimated beings fighting for superiority. But, alas, Kevin Grevioux’s conception is much more mundane and even derivative, simply plopping down a pretty “un-Frankenstein-y” monster in a very "Underworld-y" and resolutely trite war between gargoyles (the good guys) and demons (the bad guys). (It should be noted that Grevioux shows up in this film as an actor, portraying one of the nastier demons.)

The monster is nicknamed Adam by the Queen of the Gargoyles (yes, evidently they have a queen), Leonore (Miranda Otto), a woman who seems to have ambivalent feelings toward the creature (something that becomes increasingly bothersome as the film continues). The newly christened Adam refuses their invitation to join the so-called “Gargoyle Order” to combat demons, though he does utilize some training to craft his own nunchuks (or Buford Pusser- esque bats) engraved with the super secret decoder ring gargoyle symbol (only part of that description is true) that instantaneously kills demons on contact, sending their souls to confinement in hell. This act is called “descending”, and Adam becomes a formidable descender, albeit away from the hustle and bustle of everyday life—at least, until he’s found by demons yet again several centuries after his creation, at which point the story segues into a modern day setting that sees Adam as a pawn in the gargoyle-demon fracas in a contemporary urban setting.

But guess what—the king of the demons (well, prince actually, but I digress) has “masked” himself as a ruthless industrialist (admittedly not much of a mask) named Wessex (Bill Nighy), who is attempting to recreate Frankenstein’s reanimation experiments with the help of an improbably beautiful female scientist named Terra Wade (Yvonne Strahovski). Any acolyte of Syd Field or other screenwriting gurus is going to already have the basic outlines of “what happens next” already percolating in their minds, for writer-director Stuart Beattie’s approach is relentlessly predictable. However, there are little moments of unintended hilarity that peek above the ruts of the screenplay. My personal favorite moment is when Dr. Wade, who up to this point has had her hair pulled back in a tight, professional bun, leaves the Wessex laboratories and instantly unleashes her hair in an onslaught of tresses in what could be a quasi-erotic shampoo commercial.

For those without a knowledge of the highly structured three act screenplay “rules and regulations”, let’s just say that Adam and Terra form an alliance, while Adam attempts to take out Wessex while the gargoyles futz around trying to decide whether they should aid Adam or simply destroy him. The reason behind all this frenetic activity is of course a plan for world dominion by Wessex that is built upon his firm belief that reanimated corpses have no souls, a plot point which supposedly provides the underlying, hugely meaningful “arc” that Adam himself undergoes in the opposite direction, discovering that he is, after all, more than merely the sum of his parts.

I, Frankenstein 3D Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

I, Frankenstein is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Lionsgate Films with both AVC (2D) and MVC (3D) encoded 1080p transfers in 2.40:1. As has been the case with quite a few 3D outings lately (notably The Legend of Hercules 3D), most if not all of the film is bathed in deep shadows and sometimes very dark environments. Perhaps fittingly, though, this is not a detriment to the generally very sharp and nicely detailed image. This Red shot feature boasts exceptional fine detail in close-ups, revealing the craggy scars that line Adam's face and body or more mundane items like the satiny sheen of Leonore's cowl. Contrast is also strong throughout the presentation, helping to mitigate any loss of fine or shadow detail in the many color graded shots (do horror and action films require a blue tint nowadays?).

Also like the 3D rendering in The Legend of Hercules, depth is achieved most often by placing large foreground objects in part of the frame, which automatically gives the eye a reference point from which to move further into the space within the back part of the frame. Rather interestingly, though, director Beattie and cinematographer Ross Emery utilize the film's very innate darkness in an unusual way—the objects in the foreground are quite often shadows, with the back part of the frame being at least relatively better lit. This gives an immediate impression of depth and viewing planes which helps to create an at times quite impressively immersive 3D experience. Some of the busier CGI moments suffer a bit, with too much going on to ever deliver a completely compelling dimensional experience, but even here smart placement of one or two primary objects set apart from the bulk of the action help to create good if not exceptional depth.

I, Frankenstein 3D Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

I, Frankenstein's lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mix is suitably noisy and full of nicely immersive surround effects, but its very relentless quality may mean that some listeners numb to its activity after a while. That said, there is some bone rattling LFE at several key moments in the film (my personal favorite was when one of the chief demons meets its demise), and there is a glut of very well done foley effects dotting the surrounds in the action set pieces, including the hard metal clank of Adam's preferred weapons of choice. Dialogue is very cleanly presented and is occasionally nicely directional as well. Fidelity is top notch and dynamic range is extremely wide.

I, Frankenstein 3D Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Audio Commentary with Co-Writer/Director Stuart Beattie. This is a generally very interesting commentary, delivering some good information on the special effects and shooting conditions among other more anecdotal material.


• Audio Commentary with Filmmakers Gary Lucchesi, Richard Wright, James McQuaid, and Kevin Grevioux. Somewhat chattier, and therefore perhaps not quite as informative as Beattie's commentary, this still has some interesting enough information, especially from Grevioux.


• "Creating a Monster" Featurette (1080p; 13:00) looks at some of the makeup and other special effects utilized to create the film's coterie of creatures.


• "Frankenstein's Creatures" Featurette (1080p; 14:18) is basically an EPK with interviews and snippets from the film.


• Theatrical Trailer (1080p; 2:33)

I, Frankenstein 3D Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

If this film had had the courage to market itself as Frankenstein the Demon Slayer, it might have gone down a little easier. As it stands, this supposed reboot is simply revisionism at its laziest, with an iconic character simply plopped down into a rote but currently very "hot" subgenre. Visually the film is quite handsome, with a dank but burnished look that does in fact reinvent the spooky old ethos of those fantastic Universal features of yore (in a way, better than Universal itself has done in its own reboots of its horror franchises). But the story here is so impossibly hackneyed that it should have been kept buried in some long forgotten grave.