I'll start by saying this sports a great script, tight direction, and phenomenal performances. Maybe I was just in a mood when I saw this, but damn the CGI was DISTRACTINGLY overused. The grand cinematography, wide angled, really works for romantic period film, see The Favourite. Here that style just shows off how out of place the Netflix CG looks in these settings. Such a marker of 2025 that an auteur driven movie with a decent budget looks like this, instead of spending that budget on detailed production design, they fill in candles, trees, and pianos in post.

Again, maybe I'm just being spicy about that, but when the dream sequences look bad in the way that AI looks bad, I'm a little peeved. Stellar performances by Oscar Isaac and Jacob Elordi though. A lot of killer sequences too, like the half-corpse demonstration and everything with the blind man. (8/10)

Honestly, I think Frankenstein is one of the best things Guillermo del Toro has ever done. Like, of course, it's impeccably designed, with del Toro evidently emptying his Warehouse of Curiosities onto the prop table, creating a highly stylized 19th-Century Europe - that was to be expected. But he really splurged on the casting and we get great performances all around, including Oscar Isaac as the volatile Frankenstein himself, Jacob Elordi pulling a Doug Jones as the Creature - great movement and presence - and Mia Goth as a witty Elizabeth better matched with Victor than most in her interest in the creepy aspects of nature. I especially appreciate the changes and expansions where they add further layers to the essential themes of the novel. Of course, the story is a reaction to Science killing God, and therefore Victory making himself God warrants his creation should try to destroy him. But it's also an Oedipal father-son story, and expanding on Victor's childhood, his difficult relationship with the father he will become, and obsession with his mother's death (keep chugging that milk, Vic, we see you!) is an excellent addition. Del Toro also subtly points out that the relationships in the story may be analogous to those of the poets present that stormy summer at Villa Diodati - Elizabeth as Mary, William as Shelley and club-footed Byron as Victor, perhaps? Del Toro has waiting so long to finally make his Frankenstein film that he puts everything into it, and I feel like I could return to this adaptation again and again and find new things to appreciate.

meh