200 years after his shocking creation, Dr. Frankenstein's creature, Adam, still walks the earth. But when he finds himself in the middle of a war over the fate of humanity, Adam discovers he holds the key that could destroy humankind.
05 Feb I, Frankenstein (2014)
Evil Residents
We are awash in kiddie films that have the battle between good and evil made explicit in armies on each side. We will have to endure this for a while because such embodiment means we can have cinematic combat and reduction of good and bad guys to really bad baddies and good goodies.
I cannot think of any of these, however that has real evil: complex, elusive, tricky and deep. Evil that is inscrutable and obscured. Evil that we recognise in ourselves when even a sliver is visible.
Nowhere do we get a genuinely struggling and powerless force of good that isn’t necessarily opposed to evil. Instead here we have ugly snarling guys (all guys) who we completely comprehend in a few glances. Here we also have patient, noble protectors of the unsuspecting humans. All guys here too, save the boss.
Stuck between these is a strange sort of neonoir character, a man not just accidentally tossed into the conflict. He is literally tossed into being against his will. (I may have missed the explanation of why he is superhuman and essentially immortal, unless it was that bunk about electricity.)
I think James Whale would have struggled with this idea for a decade and then produced a movie in which you see no punching, but a lot of engineering of souls and bodies. Where is the modern Whale?
Posted in 2015
Ted’s Evaluation — 2 of 3: Has some interesting elements.
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