So I'm poking through the video store and see this DVD for Frankenstein. I flip it over and read the back and I'm literally rocking back on my heels, because the story is so damn similar to a series of Dean Koontz novels. I think Koontz is just above average most of the time, but lately his Frankenstein novels as well as 'Velocity' were just way above average; I really really liked them.
Thing is, even though there's tons of similarities I don't see any credit for Koontz anywhere. So I wonder, if it's a coincidence, and rent the DVD and give it a watch.
OK, I read and really liked the books (well, 1 & 2. The conclusion to the trilogy hasn't come out yet), and maybe that makes any view of the movie as being not as good unfair. But the movie falls horribly, wretchedly short of what Koontz's elaborate and intelligent storyline deserves. First off, this should have been a TV series that should have run for an entire season, so I guess you have to cut it some slack for trying to stuff a ton of story into only 90 minutes of movies. They should have said "hey, let's give this thing the budget, talent, and directorial talent of 'Lost' or 'CSI'" They didn't, and it shows.
I can see why Koontz parted ways, even though they completely ripped off his story. The first scene of the book has an excellent grab-you-by-your-throat beginning where Deucalion - who is halfway around the world in Tibet - first learns Dr Frankenstein is still alive. He utters a roar of rage, fury, & despair and one of the monks asks him if someone is dead. "Worse," he says. "Someone is still alive." Instead of that, we get a scene on a boat coming to America which makes Deucalion look something like a desperate beggar. Since we know Deucalion has mastered quantum physics and can shift instantly from one place to another in shadows, this doesn't make a lot of sense.
The casting was off. The guy who played Deucalion could have served, but they needed some Lord of the Rings visual tricks to make him look bigger. There's a scene where he's standing next to the male detective - who's played by a short scrawny little guy - and you realize that the detective is *taller* than the monster.
Both the detectives are horribly miscast. Parker Posy almost fits the physical description, but she can't act and seems more like a drug addict than anything else. The male detective looks nothing like the character in the books, who is tall, handsome, and wears loud hawaiian shirts.
I've got no beef with the guy who played Dr Frankenstein, but I have serious problems with what they did with his lab. This is a genius billionaire who in the books had a huge private lab totally state of the art. Here it looks like a dirty abandoned insane asylum; the kind of thing you'd expect from the movie 'Seven'. I know the director was going for a dirty creepy feel, but it made absolutely no sense. Also Dr Frankenstein was a little more sympathetic than he should have done. In the books, this is a man who is perfectly willing to destroy the entire human race for the sake of perfection, and who takes sadistic delight in beating his wife - in fact designed her to be beaten and quickly heal. Instead we see a sort of conflicted Dr who seems one moment to care about his wife and the next is killing her. It makes no sense.
I felt bad for the chick who played Dr Frankenstein's wife (s). She of course got no real character exposition, so of course none of her scenes made any sense.
Totally excised from the story is anything that would help it make sense. We never really understand that 'children' Frankenstein is seeding the world with are psychotic killers who feel nothing but rage and torment and want to kill humans because they are jealous of the happiness normal humans seem able to feel. We aren't told that they are forbidden to kill anyone, even themselves, except at their master's direction, or that Frankenstein has a plan for slowly killing and replacing everyone in power. We barely see the autistic brother of the female detective, and the storyline of the autistic creation of Dr Frankenstein's - so fascinating in the books - who hates the autistic brother and is trying to escape his prison in the lab... this story is totally gone.
No disembodied head & hand, which I thought was another interesting character from the books, and no sign of madness among Dr Frankenstein's household staff. Without these to interact with, and without the scenes of Dr Frankenstein beating her, there's no wonder that Frankenstein's wife has nothing much to do and no chance for character or storyline development.
The storyline from the books is fascinating, and far far more believable than this, which does it a major injustice. It looks like they put 'some' money into it, but some of the effects remind me of 'Highlander', the series.
If I had one wish for the story, it would be that it gets picked up by a major network who puts some real money into it and decides to do it right - slowly, not rushed - with lots of episodes to put in *all* of the story. That would be a hit TV series that could compete with anything, and would probably be scary as hell. This... isn't.
Thing is, even though there's tons of similarities I don't see any credit for Koontz anywhere. So I wonder, if it's a coincidence, and rent the DVD and give it a watch.
OK, I read and really liked the books (well, 1 & 2. The conclusion to the trilogy hasn't come out yet), and maybe that makes any view of the movie as being not as good unfair. But the movie falls horribly, wretchedly short of what Koontz's elaborate and intelligent storyline deserves. First off, this should have been a TV series that should have run for an entire season, so I guess you have to cut it some slack for trying to stuff a ton of story into only 90 minutes of movies. They should have said "hey, let's give this thing the budget, talent, and directorial talent of 'Lost' or 'CSI'" They didn't, and it shows.
I can see why Koontz parted ways, even though they completely ripped off his story. The first scene of the book has an excellent grab-you-by-your-throat beginning where Deucalion - who is halfway around the world in Tibet - first learns Dr Frankenstein is still alive. He utters a roar of rage, fury, & despair and one of the monks asks him if someone is dead. "Worse," he says. "Someone is still alive." Instead of that, we get a scene on a boat coming to America which makes Deucalion look something like a desperate beggar. Since we know Deucalion has mastered quantum physics and can shift instantly from one place to another in shadows, this doesn't make a lot of sense.
The casting was off. The guy who played Deucalion could have served, but they needed some Lord of the Rings visual tricks to make him look bigger. There's a scene where he's standing next to the male detective - who's played by a short scrawny little guy - and you realize that the detective is *taller* than the monster.
Both the detectives are horribly miscast. Parker Posy almost fits the physical description, but she can't act and seems more like a drug addict than anything else. The male detective looks nothing like the character in the books, who is tall, handsome, and wears loud hawaiian shirts.
I've got no beef with the guy who played Dr Frankenstein, but I have serious problems with what they did with his lab. This is a genius billionaire who in the books had a huge private lab totally state of the art. Here it looks like a dirty abandoned insane asylum; the kind of thing you'd expect from the movie 'Seven'. I know the director was going for a dirty creepy feel, but it made absolutely no sense. Also Dr Frankenstein was a little more sympathetic than he should have done. In the books, this is a man who is perfectly willing to destroy the entire human race for the sake of perfection, and who takes sadistic delight in beating his wife - in fact designed her to be beaten and quickly heal. Instead we see a sort of conflicted Dr who seems one moment to care about his wife and the next is killing her. It makes no sense.
I felt bad for the chick who played Dr Frankenstein's wife (s). She of course got no real character exposition, so of course none of her scenes made any sense.
Totally excised from the story is anything that would help it make sense. We never really understand that 'children' Frankenstein is seeding the world with are psychotic killers who feel nothing but rage and torment and want to kill humans because they are jealous of the happiness normal humans seem able to feel. We aren't told that they are forbidden to kill anyone, even themselves, except at their master's direction, or that Frankenstein has a plan for slowly killing and replacing everyone in power. We barely see the autistic brother of the female detective, and the storyline of the autistic creation of Dr Frankenstein's - so fascinating in the books - who hates the autistic brother and is trying to escape his prison in the lab... this story is totally gone.
No disembodied head & hand, which I thought was another interesting character from the books, and no sign of madness among Dr Frankenstein's household staff. Without these to interact with, and without the scenes of Dr Frankenstein beating her, there's no wonder that Frankenstein's wife has nothing much to do and no chance for character or storyline development.
The storyline from the books is fascinating, and far far more believable than this, which does it a major injustice. It looks like they put 'some' money into it, but some of the effects remind me of 'Highlander', the series.
If I had one wish for the story, it would be that it gets picked up by a major network who puts some real money into it and decides to do it right - slowly, not rushed - with lots of episodes to put in *all* of the story. That would be a hit TV series that could compete with anything, and would probably be scary as hell. This... isn't.