Stats:

Movie:
Mary Shelley's Frankenstein

Stars:
Kenneth Branaugh
Robert DeNiro
Helena Bonham-Carter
Tom Hulce
John Cleese
Aidan Quinn

Director:
Kenneth Branaugh

Date: 1995

Bottom Line:
Particularly in light of the cast and director's talents, this film is one of the biggest disasters you would ever have the misfortune to sit through.

Mary Shelley's Frankenstein

Gee, this movie sure looked promising from the ads. Great cast, good story, Kenneth Branaugh acting and directing. This was one of the worst movies of all time. I had never before seen a film that when I left the theater, I felt gross and needed to take a shower to clean myself up. Watching this movie is like watching the Hindenburg disaster. I described it to a friend as being 'palatial in it's horrendousness.'

Watching this movie is like a lesson in what can go wrong in any film and why all the elements, such as casting, writing, and photography are important when putting together a film.

Branaugh sets the action in late 18th Century Austria. Frankenstein becomes obsessed with the idea of bringing life back to the dead after his mother dies. Frankenstein goes off to medical school in Vienna with his best friend, Tom Hulce. Hulce's last best known role was as Mozart in Amadeus, so the first thing that sprang to my mind when I saw him, was 'What does Mozart have to do with Frankenstein?' I couldn't quite place his instructor. He seemed famous and then I realized that he was John Cleese. Ok, so when is the comedy going to begin?

Cleese dies and Frankenstein decides to experiment with his plans so he gets Cleese's brain and plants it in Robert DeNiro's corpse. While this is going on, Branaugh runs around to all of the midwives in town and collects amniocentesis fluid right as the pregnant women's water breaks. Branaugh collects literally tons of it and puts the corpse into it to rebirth it. As the Monster is birthed, the audience is treated to a long (10 minute) sequence where upon Frankenstein and his Monster create the new sport of Amniocentesis Wrestling. Yes, this is as gross as it sounds. The Monster finally wins the wrestling round and leaves Frankenstein to clean up his lab all by himself.

Frankenstein leaves Vienna to save his family from the Monster, but he botches this up too. The Monster lures Frankenstein's trusting 9 year-old brother out to the woods and kills him to get Frankenstein's attention. The Monster doesn't botch this up. Frankenstein goes out to the woods to meet with the Monster, who by this time is a VERY unhappy camper, possibly because after Frankenstein got through with him, it was clear that he either hadn't attended the lectures on plastic surgery or had flunked that part of his medical studies. The Monster tells Frankenstein 'To meet him on the frozen sea.' So they travel separately to the north pole, in what looks like a journey that must have taken five years as a round trip on foot and horseback. The meet on an iceberg on 'the frozen sea,' where the Monster says simply, "I will revenge myself on you and your family," (gosh, I know I sure was shocked by this statement. I had no idea that the Monster was pissed off at Frankenstein) and then they trudge back to Austria (separately) again. Couldn't he have just said that in the woods after he killed the little brother?

So back in Austria, Frankenstein has seemed to learn little and marries his longtime sweetheart, Helena Bonham-Carter. They go off on their honeymoon, where Branaugh is lured from the tasteful honeymoon suite to go chase the Monster (Wife/sex - Monster/danger? Which do I choose? hmmmm? Why Monster of course!). Branaugh as usual doesn't catch up with the Monster, but the Monster catches up with Bonham-Carter and (I bet you didn't see this one coming) kills her.

Branaugh takes her back to the Frankenstein castle where he has built another home lab (see what you can get through mail-order!). He brings Bonham-Carter back to life in the patented Frankenstein method as of course the 'Bride Of Frankenstein'! Bonham-Carter finds out that Frankenstein still didn't pass plastic surgery class AND gave her a bad hair day for what will pass as the rest of her 'life', so she decides to finish the job that the Monster began. She trashes the lab, sets it and the stone castle on fire (I still don't know how she did that) and throws herself off the 3-story curved staircase that was designed with no handrails that I had been waiting all during the movie for someone to fall off of.

Branaugh was tightly reigned in as a director after this fiasco. He is in love with 'swirling camera technique'. I didn't count how many times he used it in the film, but he seemed to go into withdrawal unless he used it at least every 3 minutes. The casting was off-kilter. Hulce was good in his role, but to be so closely identified with this time period as well as location in another role was just too jarring for the audience and we could not get past the idea of having Mozart in this movie as well. Bonham-Carter and DeNiro did the best they could with their roles. But Branaugh was so self-indulgent with his character and the script, that he effectively sabotaged the film for everyone involved. I strongly had the feeling that Branaugh and his then wife, Emma Thompson had joked with each other that they wanted to see how much they could f*ck their careers that year (she had made the largely forgotten "Junior" with Arnold Schwartzenegger - HE gets pregnant and gives birth to a baby) and still be successful working actors.

Stay far far away from this turkey. I can't come up with any thing more clever as a put down to describe it than I have already used. Be afraid, be very afraid. but not for the reasons you think.