Written & Directed by Guillermo del Toro
Based on the novel “FRANKENSTEIN OR THE MODERN PROMETHEUS” ByMary Shelly
Cinematography: Dan Laustsen
Editor: Evan Schiff
Cast: Oscar Isaac, Jacob Elordi, Mia Goth, Christoph Waltz, Charles Dance, David Bradley, Ralph Ineson, Lars Mikkelsen, Nikolaj Lie Kaas, Lauren Collins, Sofia Galasso
Dr. Victor Frankenstein, a brilliant but egotistical scientist, brings a creature to life in a monstrous experiment that ultimately leads to the undoing of both the creator and his tragic creation.
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Guillermo del Toro’s adaptation of Frankenstein arrives with the kind of anticipation usually reserved for cinematic pilgrimages. It’s a long-gestating passion project by a filmmaker whose devotion to monsters borders on religious. And yes, it’s gorgeous. Ravishing. Sculpted with the kind of gothic precision that makes you want to pause the frame and hang it in a museum (which, ironically, is part of the problem).
Because for all its visual majesty, the film feels less like a living, beating story and more like a beautifully lit museum chamber piece sacred, admired, but curiously still. Almost like a Wes Anderson film
Watching Frankenstein at home, even on the biggest TV you can justify without shame, is like trying to view a cathedral through your peephole. You get the idea, but not the impact. As The film Is A Gorgeous Experience That Never Quite Comes Alive
Del Toro stages the movie like a theatrical spectacle; wide, grand, operatic. It demands an audience seated in the dark, collectively hopefully
holding their breath. On a smaller screen the whole thing compresses, and so does its emotional force. It becomes one more thing you’re “watching while also texting,” its larger-than-life gestures suddenly feeling muted. Which might be why this film doesn’t reach me. As much as it would in a theater more secluded and direct.
It’s a reminder of an uncomfortable truth: not every film needs the big screen, but this one absolutely does. Shrink it, and the soul shrinks with it.
A friend once described last year’s NOSFERSTU remake as “a museum piece”—impeccable, reverent, exquisitely lit, styled, designed and emotionally distant. It comes off more as a presentation than a movie. Del Toro’s Frankenstein often slips into that same territory.
The sets are Immaculate. The creature design is inventive. The mood? Pretentiously Overwhelming in the best way.
And yet… it rarely moves you. The emotions are presented but not felt. They are laid before the viewer with academic seriousness, like annotations on a text everyone already knows by heart. Maybe that’s the curse of remaking a story we’ve collectively known since childhood: the beats land, but they don’t surprise.
It becomes less a story and more an opportunity to witness someone else’s interpretation of a myth you’ve heard too many times.
Del Toro is too talented to ever make something bad, but here he feels like a director in his Tim-Burton-phase: Instead of breaking new ground, he’s lovingly recreating the things that inspired him growing up. Unlike Burton, del Toro doesn’t defang his monsters or turn them into punchlines. He actually adores them too much for that, but the result is still a filmmaker circling familiar territory rather than charting new routes.
And yes, the del Toro signature remains: a gothic romance at the center, a creature yearning for connection, a broken heart inside a larger-than-life body. It’s easy to see what drew him to the material. It’s also easy to wish he’d returned to an original idea instead.
Christoph Waltz—shockingly—goes big. He’s operatic, but also the kind of actor who benefits from stern directorial supervision. Left unchecked, he can become his own genre. Here, he hovers just on the edge of self-parody, charismatic but distracting.
The rest of the cast plays it with earnestness and restraint, letting del Toro’s production design do most of the heavy emotional lifting. Sometimes too much.
So… Is It Good? Absolutely. Is it essential?
Not quite. As Frankenstein is an achievement, a vision, a painterly triumph. But it’s also one more retelling of a story that has been told so many times it now arrives pre-interpreted. Beautiful, yes undeniably. But also strangely hollow, like an echo of itself.
It’s a noteworthy film, worth admiring, worth seeing on the biggest screen you can find.
But it’s not a new favorite. More a reminder of what del Toro can do… and what we wish he’d dare to do next.
Grade: B
