Victor Frankenstein *** (2015, Daniel Radcliffe, James McAvoy, Jessica Brown Findlay) – Movie Review

Daniel Radcliffe is Igor and James McAvoy plays Victor Frankenstein in director Paul McGuigan’s enjoyable reworking of the familiar Frankenstein story that provides a bit of a new spin but doesn’t stray too far from the old story.

In this version, written by Max Landis, Victor Frankenstein is a young medical student who rescues a young hunchback boy from slavery in a circus, gives him a quick operation to straighten his back, gives him food and lodging, gives him a new name – that of the deceased Igor – and in return makes him his assistant in his Creature-making experiments.

Radcliffe and McAvoy do excellently well in their roles, a bit jokey and campy, but not too much, so that it’s fun. The two performances are judged pretty well right, both individually and as a double act. Jessica Brown Findlay naturally gets the thin end of the wedge as Igor’s love interest. Alas, it’s more or less impossible to make this interesting.

The movie is a very good-looking piece of work, largely very serious and dark-toned, and it’s commendably tight and lean. It feels sharply edited and pared down, so out must have gone some dross, and with it, we can imagine, various supporting actors’ roles. But Andrew Scott gets a nice look-in as a intense, brooding and creepy investigating copper, Inspector Turpin. This important third role in the movie is a riskily weird turn, dangerously spoken in a monotone, that however luckily pays off. And Freddie Fox has a good time too in a rather more extravagant turn as the rich young Finnegan, who backs Frankenstein’s experiments.

However, in support, Callum Turner from Queen & Country (2014) is wasted as the Inspector’s sidekick, and so are Bronson Webb as Rafferty and Daniel Mays as Barnaby.

Victor Frankenstein may have been critically bashed in America, but it stands a chance back here in the UK. Perhaps it isn’t totally thrilling or utterly dynamic, but, without being great or memorable, it is entirely entertaining and engrossing as the hour and three quarters just rush by. I don’t suppose now we’ll get the hinted-at sequel, but it would have been fun.

© Derek Winnert 2015 Classic Movie Review 3116

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