THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, November 8, 1994 TAG: 9411070251
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Movie Review
SOURCE: BY MAL VINCENT, MOVIE CRITIC
LENGTH: Long : 123 lines
ONE THING is certain. You won't nod off during the running of ``Mary Shelley's Frankenstein.'' If nothing else, this is perhaps the noisiest movie of the year. It's overwrought and frenetic every moment of the way. Everyone runs and shouts at all times, while the camera spins 360 degrees.
However, don't expect to get too scared.
The fact that Kenneth Branagh directs would lead one to expect this to be an arty, literate interpretation of the famed Mary Shelley yarn. After all, Branagh's screen legacy to date has been in popularizing two Shakespearean works, ``Henry V'' and ``Much Ado About Nothing,'' into accessible movies for a mass audience.
With ``Frankenstein,'' though, Branagh faces just the opposite challenge. Frankenstein, the monster with the bolts in his neck, has become such a permanent part of our cultural folklore that it is doubtful he needs popularization. What he needs is a new angle.
The new movie is an example of good, brisk storytelling, but it is nothing new. In spite of the title, which gives a courteous nod to Shelley, the film is no closer to the original novel than several other screen versions. One suspects that the title, as well as the financing, is due more to the box office success of ``Bram Stoker's Dracula'' than to any urge to correct past literary distortions of Shelley's work.
Add the casting of Robert De Niro as ``the creature'' to Branagh's respectability and you have a reason for intelligent people to buy tickets along with the thrill seekers.
Like the book, Branagh ``frames'' the story with an arctic manhunt in which Dr. Victor Frankenstein, played by Branagh, reveals his sordid past to a sea captain, played by Aidian Quinn. As in the book, Victor is the center of things and is a tragic human, not a mad scientist. He still screams ``It's alive!'' at the fatal moment of monster-mash, but he does it with more fear than madness.
In a change from the book, and a nod to 1990s feminism, Elizabeth, Victor's adopted sister and eventual bride (played by the alabaster-pale Helena Bonham Carter) is a more feisty and pivotal character. When he spends too much time in the lab, she reads him the riot act and threatens to walk.
The subplot about servant Justine being framed for the killing of a child actually murdered by ``the creature,'' again gets short shrift.
Faithfulness to the book, then, is no raison d'etre for this new version. Because there have already been 44 movies on the subject, one wonders if a new one is really needed or desirable. Suffice it to say, however, that Branagh's film is nothing if not fast paced. You won't have a chance to rush out to get popcorn. There is continual thundering noise (partly from a quite exciting if repetitive score composed by Patrick Doyle). The scenes are quick cuts, flashing from one happening to the next. Whenever Bonham Carter is on screen, Branagh uses her beauty as an excuse to have the camera completely encircle her.
One suspects that the hectic rush is not so much because of any urge to get all the novel into two hours as it is to keep the audience jumping. In the process, the director loses sight of any terror that might be inherent. Horror requires mood. Creeping can do a great deal more than rushing in this genre. This version is closer to Hellzapoppin' than it is to hell.
The theme of science threatening both sensibilities and moralities is perhaps more timely today than it was in 1818, when Shelley's novel was published. Now, we have all kinds of lifesaving, almost life-creating, procedures that allow man to play God. The soul-searching theme does manage to get through all the noise.
Victor starts off as an ambitious young student who is traumatized by the death of his mother. (There is a graphic childbirth scene, which apparently is meant to later symbolize the script writer's theory that Frankenstein was jealous of woman's ability to give birth). He comes under the influence of the dark Professor Waldman, who teaches him about creation and such. (Having British comic John Cleese in the Waldman role may cause a distraction for Monty Python fans.)
The film almost takes on real life in the creation scene, during which Branagh runs about shirtless with lights flashing. He fails to let it pay off, however, by not letting us see De Niro's monster and instead whining about his awful deed, killing the creation.
De Niro's casting as the creature is distracting. Although he works hard to suggest a misunderstood loner, we can never forget that it's De Niro under all that latex.
Even more distracting are the remnants of a Bronx accent in the few lines he speaks. This is a ``creature'' more absorbed in philosophical soothsaying than in doing any harm. In this regard, the book is followed. De Niro's get-up, though, doesn't look at all the way Shelley described the creature.
The most tenderly tragic moment from the most famous film version of ``Frankenstein,'' made in 1931 (the scene in which the creature unintentionally kills a child), takes place off screen.
Dr. Frankenstein's wedding night, the most dramatic moment, is handled well - even though unintentional laughs are provided when Bonham Carter comes back from the dead as a monster herself. (Frankenstein was not handy with a needle and thread, in spite of his supposed scientific knowledge. The stitching here is primitive).
Comic relief, the intended kind, is provided by Tom Hulce, whose costume and bearing reminds one of his role in ``Amadeus.''
``Mary Shelley's Frankenstein'' is a good deal better than the dreadful ``Bram Stoker's Dracula,'' which was nothing more than a costume show. If anything, this film is a good deal less lavish than you'd expect.
The blue set for the ballroom in the Frankenstein home is used over and over, complete with a scary staircase with no railing. If an unsafe staircase is the scariest thing about a ``Frankenstein'' movie, the horror fans are going to be disappointed.
Still, in all the rush, they may not even notice. ILLUSTRATION: Color photo
The creature (Robert DeNiro) nears completion in Dr. Frankenstein's
(Kenneth Branagh) lab in "Mary Shelley's Frankenstein."
B&W photo by David Appleby
MOVIE REVIEW
``Mary Shelley's Frankenstein''
Cast: Robert De Niro, Kenneth Branagh, Tom Hulce, Helena Bonham
Carter, Aidan Quinn, Ian Holm, John Cleese
Director: Kenneth Branagh
Screenplay: Steph Lady and Frank Darabont
Music: Patrick Doyle
MPAA rating: R (gore, brief nudity)
Mal's rating: 2 and 1/2 stars
Locations: Movies 10 in Chesapeake; Circle 4, Main Gate in
Norfolk; Kemps River, Lynnhaven Mall, Surf-N-Sand in Virginia Beach
by CNB