That Guillermo del Toro had never before addressed “Frankenstein” is a bit like Yo-Yo Ma overlooking the Bach cello suites, or Julia Child having blanked on boeuf bourguignon. The Mexican maestro of the macabre has always loved monsters, and never more devotedly than in his overdue interpretation of Mary Shelley’s “Modern Prometheus,” which, for all its furor, is less a pure horror film than a romantic-gothic fairy tale.
Narratively erratic and rhythmically uneven, but with the imagistic ecstasy of a Caspar David Friedrich painting, “Frankenstein” à la Del Toro takes a lab’s worth of liberties with Shelley’s 1818 novel, moving the story to 1857 and a Scandinavian ship ice-bound in the Arctic. Its unhappy crew is near-mutinous, especially after Capt. Anderson (Lars Mikkelsen) brings aboard a seriously injured man being pursued by a seemingly unkillable beast, one who refuses to back away until they hand over, yes, Victor Frankenstein (Oscar Isaac).
Copyright ©2025 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8
