{"id":31894,"date":"2025-10-14T22:33:55","date_gmt":"2025-10-15T02:33:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/?p=31894"},"modified":"2025-10-14T22:33:55","modified_gmt":"2025-10-15T02:33:55","slug":"guillermo-del-toro-frankenstein-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/?p=31894","title":{"rendered":"Review: Guillermo del Toro\u2019s \u2018Frankenstein\u2019 is a Glorious Adaptation of Mary Shelley’s Literary Classic"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mary Shelley\u2019s 1818 novel, <\/span>Frankenstein<\/i><\/b>, <\/b>was so evocative for its time, paving the way for nearly one hundred years of adaptations from the more faithful film adaptations to animated films and comic books. One filmmaker who has always been a notable fan is Guillermo del Toro<\/a>, who has been saying for decades in interviews that he\u2019s wanted to tackle Shelley\u2019s novel. Finally, he was able to get his movie made, thanks to Netflix footing the presumably hefty bill.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The film opens with a prologue of a Scandinavian ship stranded in an ice floe in the Arctic during the mid-19th Century. After coming upon a wounded man near a flaming campsite, the seamen soon encounter a hulking creature hellbent on getting to said man. This is how we meet Oscar Isaac\u2019s Dr. Victor Frankenstein, who proceeds to tell his story to the captain, going all the way back to his childhood, leading up to his forays into the world of medicine and his fascination with \u201ccuring death.\u201d This obsession leads Victor into the world of \u201cmad science\u201d that has him lurking outside public hangings and combing battlefields for corpses to use for his sick experiments, eventually bringing a \u201ccreation\u201d (portrayed by Jacob Elordi) to life. Things don\u2019t go quite as Dr. Frankenstein planned, as this being is only able to say one word, Victor\u2019s name, and doesn\u2019t offer anything else to prove Frankenstein\u2019s experiment a success. Victor\u2019s obsession with his younger brother William\u2019s new fianc\u00e9, Elizabeth (Mia Goth), leads to even more problems as she is sympathetic for Victor\u2019s creation despite his regular abuse of the poor creature.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Frankenstein\"<\/a>
Jacob Elordi in Frankenstein (courtesy Netflix)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Despite del Toro\u2019s vast background in directing and producing horror films, his <\/span>Frankenstein <\/span><\/i>is not a horror movie pers\u00e9. It\u2019s something that\u2019s more representative of a typical period costume drama with elements of science fiction, or as much as one can consider a movie set in 1855 as sci-fi. One thing to note is that this is the first screenplay written solo by del Toro since <\/span>Pan\u2019s Labyrinth<\/i><\/b> and the <\/span>Hellboy<\/span><\/i> movies, which is actually a positive, since you can tell this <\/span>Frankenstein<\/span><\/i> is entirely his own vision.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/ins><\/span><\/p>\n

This is a much longer film than the 1931 James Whale classic, which somehow managed to tell the same story in a mere hour and ten minutes. Presumably, del Toro went back to Shelley\u2019s book to find ways of incorporating elements that were left out of the best-known version of this story. To be honest, it\u2019s been many decades since I last read the novel, but it feels as if del Toro is remaining faithful to prior iterations while making this story truly his own.<\/span><\/p>\n

As with his <\/span>Hellboy<\/span><\/i> movies and his Oscar-winning <\/span>The Shape of Water<\/i><\/b>, del Toro doesn\u2019t treat Frankenstein\u2019s creature as a \u201cmonster,\u201d but rather, a sympathetic character who is more of a protagonist than Victor himself. The filmmaker cast the perfect actor in Jacob Elordi, who looks unrecognizable from his role as Elvis Presley in 2024\u2019s <\/span>Priscilla<\/i><\/b><\/a>, but also gives a performance even more stirring than Doug Jones as the creature in <\/span>Shape<\/span><\/i>. After Victor\u2019s story ends in a literal explosion, the film then shifts its focus to the creature\u2019s point of view as we follow him into the wilderness before meeting a blind old man who teaches <\/span>him how to read and speak, giving him the knowledge Victor could never impart.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Frankenstein\"<\/a>
Mia Goth in Frankenstein (courtesy Netflix)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

As the clear antagonist of the film, Isaac gives a performance that perfectly captures Victor\u2019s descent into madness, while Mia Goth is also fantastic as Elizabeth, by helping shepherd the viewer into the much-needed empathy towards Elordi\u2019s creature, which is clearly what the filmmaker was hoping to achieve. <\/span>Frankenstein<\/span><\/i>\u2019s issue is that it spends far too much time with Victor Frankenstein\u2019s backstory and origins, mostly to set up his Daddy issues, which is only marginally necessary to illustrate Victor\u2019s later problems. By comparison, Goth\u2019s Elizabeth is done dirty by how she\u2019s quickly discarded and then forgotten from the movie.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/ins><\/span><\/p>\n

Beyond the character work, del Toro\u2019s <\/span>Frankenstein<\/span><\/i> features some of the best crafts work of any movie you\u2019ll see this year, from the jaw-dropping costumes designed by Kate Hawley and Tamara Deverell\u2019s production design, both which help create a distinctive period setting beautifully captured by Dan Laustsen’s lighting and camerawork. The score by Alexandre Desplat \u2013 reuniting with del Toro after <\/span>The Shape of Water<\/span><\/i>, for which Desplat also won an Oscar \u2013 brings so much to every aspect of the film, particularly the emotions the viewer feels while watching Elordi make his way through the world, leading to a teary conclusion. There is no question that this work by del Toro\u2019s team is some of the best you\u2019ll see in any movie this year, and that includes the fluid mix of make-up and visual effects.<\/span><\/p>\n

Del Toro\u2019s <\/span>Frankenstein<\/span><\/i> is such a long-time coming, and the results are a fantastic and glorious addition to his filmography, only marred by a few slight issues like its excessive run time and other minor issues.<\/span><\/p>\n

Rating: <\/b>B+<\/span><\/p>\n

Frankenstein<\/span><\/i> will open in select theaters on Friday, October 10, then will stream on Netflix, starting on November 7.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mary Shelley\u2019s 1818 novel, Frankenstein, was so evocative for its time, paving the way for nearly one hundred years of adaptations from the more faithful film adaptations to animated films and comic books. One filmmaker who has always been a notable fan is Guillermo del Toro, who has been saying for decades in interviews that…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":559,"featured_media":31889,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20471,19],"tags":[17562,4194,7215,4402,2896],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nReview of Guillermo del Toro's Frankenstein<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Cinema Daily US's Edward Douglas reviews Guillermo del Toro's Franenstein, starring Oscar Isaac, Jacob Elordi, and Mia Goth.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/?p=31894\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Review of Guillermo del Toro's 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