Victor Frankenstein Review – Flawless Performances as McAvoy and Radcliffe Capture the Mind-Bending Macabre
- Details
- Category: Film
- Published on Saturday, 28 November 2015 14:56
- Written by Janet Walker
Victor Frankenstein, from 20th Century Fox and Davis Entertainment, brings to the screen a ghoulish and morbid tale with the history of the mad scientific study behind the folklore piecemeal creation of the first monster behind the mythology of Frankenstein.
Directed, and adapted for the screen, by Max Landis from Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein, Victor Frankenstein stars James McAvoy, Daniel Radcliffe, Jessica Brown Findlay and Andrew Scott.
Victor Frankenstein opens in the dark days of London where the circus gathered the innocent, helpless and the injured rejects from society, some for their skill, other's prowess, fearlessness and still others for gift of their deformities or scientific marvels.
Igor, played flawlessly by Daniel Radcliffe, moves through the sideshow, a hunchback clown. His unusual deformity has made him perfect for the Ringmaster's entertainment. Unwanted, with little hope for any tomorrow's he became the clown.
Yet secretly, the sorrowful clown hides from all a brilliant scientific mind, and a gift for photographic medical memory, Igor studies even in the archaic composition of manuals he finds and through his mind’s eye he possesses the ability to see, in actuality, the words, diagrams and with keen remembrances the results.
His expertise, unknown by others, and clearly a skill able to elevate him to better days even possibly civilized circumstances, is tested as the object of his affection, Lorelei, the trapeze artist, falls and unless a medical procedure is completed immediately she will surely die.
His uncanny ability to imagine the skeleton frame and the information he has studied causes him to ask for a doctor in the house and immediately diagnose and treat the condition. Of course his love awakens and is transported to a full recovery.
Upon which, the doctor, played brilliantly by James McAvoy, offers the hunchback a means of escape. Soon as the circus gathers and cages its animals and Igor is counted among them, the mysterious Frankenstein shows up to pick the lock.
Soon the two are making a mad dash through the booby trapped unknown circus grounds until they reach an escape. The chase scene which is presented as a haunted house, with trap doors, dead ends, pop-up's around every corner, grabs and holds the attention.
Instantly, the two, Igor and his unknown benefactor, are taken from one's domain and knowledge to another with equal deftness and skill. Now in the laboratory of the mad Dr. Frankenstein, and suddenly as one doesn’t know if the timid Igor has gone from caged to subject.
With a burst, Victor announces and he moves, energized, by his find and his diagnosis of the hunchback that has kept Igor bent and in pain, and continues in a frantic, pinball bounce, rushes from side to side gathering tools, leaving his stunned, unsure and unaware new assistant Igor speechless and paralyzed by shock.
Pouncing, with the ability and deftness of a skilled surgeon, Victor pins the dumbstruck Igor to the pole, restraining him as he plunges a very long needle into the middle of the equally large and painful rock that has grown on his shoulder.
And this wild rush is just the first five minutes.
Healing one trapped oft causes loyalty and devotion and the same is true in Landis’ Victor Frankenstein. A proper houseman, or assistant, the freed Igor has been entrusted, elevated and treated with the respect his skill deserves.
The story of freedom is the underlying theme as each person we met across the film is freed from something, a wound, a cage, constraints, life or as Victor would have it even freed from the chains of death.
Victor Frankenstein may have been considered a box office filler, a tease over the holiday weekend and honestly, it is more than fluff and has substance to stand.
James McAvoy and Daniel Radcliffe, bring to life this macabre tale of which a brilliant mind was once trapped in a deformed body and a psychotic mind trapped with no escape.
James McAvoy gives a stunning performance. His skill as an actor is either deeply underrated or he simply doesn't get as much work as he should. Known for taking deep and risky roles, this is no different and after his first energized monologue I wanted to applaud. He is gifted, the performance is off the charts.
The two together make a brilliant mind-bending science team as they, on the cutting edge of time and ethics use the concept of transplanting organs to bring to life from nothingness. It's fascinating, ghoulish, fast moving and catches the attention from the beginning.
Andrew Scott plays the quiet devoted Inspector Turpin who on the edge follows his instincts meticulously. His performance, the fixed foot in the compass of Frankenstein’s manic excursions, is as noteworthy for his opposition as McAvoy’s for his stratospheric, over the top, capture of Shelly’s madman.
The special effects in Victor Frankenstein are worth the mention as the science mind bent on developing the impossible finds a way to generate the necessary modern cutting edge technology needed to bring to life, realistically, from archaic 19th century tools performed as flawlessly as the performers.
Victor Frankenstein is worth the deviation from what is considered the sure safe bets this holiday weekend, if simply for the performances of McAvoy and Radcliffe, and if you dare venture into the unknown and uncharted waters with this macabre tale.
Victor Frankenstein is in wide release.
