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.
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.