I just watched it. Is it woke, I don't recall seeing a black person in it. So the casting represents the population of Europe at the time. Is it gay or feminist, not really. Victor has weird attachment issues with his mom and the creature, but nothing overtly gay or feminist in it. I didn't see anything really pushing a modern progressive message.
It has Del Toro's gothic aesthetic. There were shots that showed deep green lighting I think are in every Del Toro movie. It has a lot of gore. People are treated like blood bags throughout the movie.
I think it's a good movie with some pacing issues. I think some parts are too slow and other parts happen quickly with little build-up. My biggest gripe about the movie is the Elizabeth character. She really doesn't add much and her instant attraction and love for the creature is weird. And personally I don't understand the fascination with Mia Goth, I think she's odd looking and a fair actress at best.
TL:DR - Frankenstein is a decent adaptation with gore and no overt modern progressivism.
Yeah, I don't trust him since he decided to make Pinocchio about hecking fascism. Curious how he never calls out his corrupt government.
He praised Emilia Perez, btw. The one about a troon druglord who becomes a saint
There you go. That's the hook.
There seems to have been a recent push in the mainstream (or at least, from what I've observed?) to heavily convince women that they should be into bestiality of some kind.
Maybe I've just been out of the loop for a lot of material aimed at women over the years, but various social commentary content creators I follow have noted how hard they have been pushing the women-with-monsters angle in media recently, especially romance novels.
Have they always been this way? Maybe. But from back what I remember, blokes like Fabio used to grace the covers of romance novels frequently, not minotaurs and centaurs.
Del Toro also did the Shape of Water, which was also about a wench falling in love with a creature. Seems like a common theme with some of his more recent films.
While that's probably the subtext, my male mind interpreted it as Elizabeth being a bleeding heart who saw the monster as something innocent. And indeed, it was at first. Dangerous, but a true blank slate. A newborn baby in the body of a juggernaut. Her infatuation of the creature coming from maternal instinct rather than lust.
Of course, that's what I saw in it. What Del Toro intended, and what the female audience will get out of it are probably very different.
That's fine until her death scene where she starts talking about falling in love so quickly and all
That's a fair assessment of what could have been intended, and a good faith interpretation.
Mine was more of the pessimistic impression based on current cultural trends.
All part of the plan. Our Race Will Rule Undisputed Over The World
Women aren't that different from men. They just can be more subtle about things.
Look at the pornography problem that men have gone through in the last decades. Where "softcore" stuff was enough for men to pay money just a generation or two ago, and now we have men with hyper fetishes that barely even make sense and an addiction to the dopamine rush of gooning to it.
Women's stuff went through much a similar path, where they dabbled in monster stuff that was still mostly human (the 90s-00s vampire craze was built on this), but it was all still heavily into the romantic, emotional angle that would be their version of "softcore" with Fabio.
Then they literally had hardcore BDSM books reach mainstream popularity and normalcy with 50 Shades of Grey. That became the baseline for their masturbation fantasies. So of course something already established like "monster fucking" would explode into some extreme levels afterward to keep chasing that taboo dopamine high.
He’s Sephardic?
I haven't watched it because I won't pay for netflix since they made Cuties. Maybe I will pirate it one of these nights if I have absolutely nothing else to do. More likely, I will forget all about it after I leave this thread and never think about it again.
The only thing I care to see out of Hollywood these days is news of their failures and mass layoffs. I am done separating the art from the artist. I want the art to fail and take the artists down with it.
Same, Ive been off since "Dear White People." I haven't heard of them making anything worthwhile since Daredevil, and I think they lost most of the old TV library that made them a good deal for $7.99.
Instead of thinking about what makes sense, think about the behaviors we observe women exhibiting.
If weird fishmen and monsters showed up, women would demand we give them free healthcare and be waving "creatures welcome" signs.
Growing up I never understood why Frankenstein was a thing.
Monster brought to life, finds out it can't have kids then it kills people and itself. What an amazing story /golfclap
I had suspected as much, but turns out the only reason anybody cared about this story, even back in the day, is it was written by a woman. Mary Shelly's mother was a feminist, she was a feminist, her one successful story co-authored by her actual talented husband, other works full of self-inserts and described as "hack" writing and "pedestrian". It's the prototypical woke story.
The only good things about it are the name and the "it's alive!" lightning scene. Except the name and idea are aped from her visit to Castle Frankenstein where an actual real-life mad scientist had claimed to discover an 'elixir of life', and the lightning scene was created by Hollywood.
I think it's a story about man exceeding his grasp and the danger of trying to play God.
It's just the Jewish folktale of The Golem (complete with the golem turning on its masters) but done for general audiences. A simple cribbing of an existing tale and localized, then pushed to popularity because... Reasons.
Frankenstein is a story where the idea of it, and the philosophical quandaries you can discuss off that is well above the content itself.
The discussion of God's responsibility to his creation and in turn fear of it is profound and interesting, so much so that a single line about it from fucking Spy Kids 2 blew people's minds, but its attached to a story that is incredibly boring and full of hilariously dumb details like the Monster chasing him on dog sleds.
But the only reason its actually a thing is because the movie was a huge hit in the earliest days of film, and its gone on to be referenced and inspire so much that its impossible to not discuss it. And tellingly, it takes almost nothing from the book beyond a few generalized scenes to tell a quick hit of horror action.
I get the appeal entirely and even if not reanimating a corpse it's message has universal appeal and moral implications.
Like OP said it's about playing God and toying with forces beyond not necessarily our intelligence, but beyond our ethical comprehension.
In the movie Frankenstein spends so much time trying to bring something to life he never once for a second thought about what he'd do once it was alive. The thing was like a baby and all it wanted was a parent. It was actually sad. I thought of my own kids and when they want to play and I'm dismissive because of work or stress or whatever. It was super relatable movie and I think the original story is too. What about nuclear bombs? Vaccines? Abortion? IVF? Cloning? All have moral implications that no one bothers to think about until after.
riiiiiiiiiight
I was in the process of acquiring it on the high seas when a friend waved me away from it. I trust his take.
Granted, things like cinematography and sets, etc. Anything esthetic gets an a+. It's directed and edited completely.
Then we get to Elisabeth. And it goes FULL Netflix.
She's insufferable, knows everything. Every scene she's in is her condescending to the dumb men telling them the correct way do everything. Including how to make the friggin monster, because Netflix. Same shit. Different movie.
Guimerro Del Torro has a fetish for his gorlboss characters. I think every one of his films has that in it.
She's not in it enough to ruin the movie for me
The reason why Del Toro could seemingly get away with an 'all-European' cast, is because Del Toro is Mexican and Óscar Isaac Hernández Estrada comes from Guatemala.
Not only that, but the book was written by a female author.
I disagree. It's a bad movie. The writing is shit. The over the top gore is pointless and annoying. The CGI is nothing to write home about. The changes to the story are awful and Dr. Frankenstein is just an all around awfully written character. They couldn't have made Dr. Frankenstein any more unlikable. Oscar Isaac also doesn't fit because of his ethnicity. If they had at least chosen actors that looked somewhat similar to Oscar Isaac as his parents and brother I could've ignored it but Charles Dance, Mia Goth and Felix Kammerer? Yeah, no.
Can't go into details without spoiling the movie but in my opinion Frankenstein is a severely overrated movie and is a pretty bad Frankenstein adaptation.
Why would you care about spoiling a bad movie?
Just because I think it is a bad movie doesn't mean others won't enjoy it. You thought it was decent for example.
I mean there isn't much to be spoiled anyway but still.
I deliberately spoil movies I think people should avoid. Give them less reasons to watch
I watched it last night. I thought it was very well done. The Elizabeth character obviously also plays into Victor's childhood obsession with his mother (same actress). That is a plot point for the madness that drove him to create the monster. Subtextually, he mistreated his monster as a continuation of the abuse and emotional neglect he felt from his father. I like the ending a lot. Overall, a totally solid, authentic MOVIE like we don't see much of these days.
Agreed.
It was really good. Watched it the day it came out here. I enjoyed it from start to finish. The actors did a great job. The monster walked the line between looking monstrous and looking human, very well. It was a novel take on his appearance that I think was executed very well. The sets were amazing. The lighting was good. Not overly CGI reliant, and if it was, it was done so well that it wasn't noticeable. The story bounces back and forth a bit which broke any monotony. Great pacing. NOT woke at all. No hint of woke or the message. Not black people in it so that was an unexpected bonus. The characters are multi dimensional, not marvel villains. The two leads, Frankenstein and his monster, knocked it out of the park. Del Toro really did a good job with this movie.
Thanks. Also reminds me that I never read the book
Meh, it was a good movie but I still don't care for the tale of Frankenstein. Too gloomy and not what I needed in my diet these days. I yearn for something more optimistic.
I didn't think it was a gloomy ending though.
I disagree. He's still alone, his father dead and no real purpose to his existence, just a vague goal of "you're alive so you might as well live." They tried to spin it as uplifting but it's still just listless and aimless wandering ahead for him. The whole tale from start to finish is utterly depressing and I don't care for it. There's enough of that in real life, I don't need that in my escapist media.
Fair enough. I thought the ending quote about suffering heartbreak is inevitable but life is still worth going through is a positive message.