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| Frankenstein directed by Marcus Nispel http://www.amazon.com/Frankenstein/dp/B000LQ9590 |
Frankenstein, directed by Marcus Nispel, was to
be a pilot for a USA Cable Network series based on characters and concepts in
Dean Koontz’s novel Frankenstein: The
Prodigal Son. Koontz, as did the pilot’s original executive producer, departed
from the project with USA Network and removed their names from the pilot after
being disappointed in how it turned out. The story is set in modern day New
Orleans where Victor Helios, a mad scientist who has made billions off of his
biotechnology research, is secretly creating a genetically modified superhuman
race in an abandoned warehouse. Victor Helios is Mary Shelley’s Victor
Frankenstein who two hundred years after creating his first monster has managed
to practice his research on himself, modifying his genes so that he too can
have superhuman strength and longevity. Victor’s obsession with perfection has
even motivated him to create himself a wife, who like all other superhuman
spawn, is programed as he desires. All of Victor’s modern creatures mature in a
vat of genetically modified placental fluid that breathes life into his
creations, with a shock of electricity awakening them. Victor’s first creation,
named Deucalion, is to be synonymous with the monster in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. Deucalion, unlike Victor’s
latest creations, is far from perfection. Scars cover his body and the organs
gathered to create him were obtained from the most wretched of places through
the most grotesque manner. Victor’s latest creations are free of Deucalion’s
flaws due to his increased knowledge over years of research and his efforts to
delve into genetics.
The movie, like Mary Shelley’s
classic, is a framed story. The movie opens with the monster getting off of
what is left to movie viewers to assume to be Walton’s vessel, but there is no
clarification or return to this scene. The movie then jumps to a scene set in
modern day New Orleans with two detectives working on solving a case involving numerous
deaths by the same killer whose signature is a missing organ – a heart, a
kidney, a liver. A new victim finds them even more puzzled after an autopsy
reveals that the man had two hearts, extra molars, bones of concrete, and 30%
more lymph nodes – all abnormal findings. The movie then begins to focus in on
Victor Helios, a very wealthy man whose research has made him a name, but he
has a secret endeavor, that of which uses his wealth, knowledge, and status as
a cover up for the devastation he conceives and makes a reality. Within these
three ongoing stories a very disjointed and disturbing remake of Mary Shelley’s
classic novel unravels.
There were very few similarities in
this movie to Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein,
one of them being the previously referenced framed story. The second and last
similarity was the very primitive outline of Mary Shelley’s story, which includes
a distraught scientist and his creation. What this movie’s producer did with the
bare minimum of Shelley’s novel was an entirely different vision from what
Shelley ever had imagined and put to paper.
The makers of this film turned
Shelley’s classic into a modern science fiction film with highly grotesque and
superficial cinematography. Producer Marcus Nispel described the movie as, “not
your grandfather’s Frankenstein” (Nispel,
2004). The producer’s vision for this movie was for it to be a continuum of
Shelley’s Victor’s endeavor 200 years later, but they’re forgetting that in
Mary Shelley’s novel Victor died of physical and mental distress and never
lived to see through to finishing off his monster, much less continuing his
research and creating a superhuman race two centuries later. The visionaries
for the movie also have the monster’s physical characteristics, as described by
Shelley, entirely wrong. In the movie the monster is not a man of abnormally
large stature and does not have any discernibly horrifying features that would
disgust any human being that set eyes on him, rather he is mildly attractive
with the only out of place characteristic being the large scar on his face and
his clothing. The other glaring differences are the setting, in which there is no
discernible landscape that embodies the sublime qualities described in Shelley’s
novel, as well as the fact that it is not eighteenth-century Geneva, but rather
twenty-first century America. The last key difference that I would like to note
is the lack of feminism. Shelley’s novel was based on the premise of feminism,
as advocated by her mother. Shelley alluded to feminism throughout her novel
rather delicately, but the messages were rather profound. In this film
adaptation, if one can even call it that, there were no female characters
except for Victor’s wife Erica whom he created to be perfection. Erica herself
played a very minimal role in the movie and was killed off by Victor because
she felt she did not display the perfection that he sought. He brought her back
to life after altering her genetics to make up for what she did not possess in
her prior life. One could see this as patriarchy because Victor’s actions
towards Erica are centered on his obsession for control, therefore insinuating
a displacement of equality, but altogether there was no underlying feminist
advocacy.
In conclusion, Marcus Nispel’s Frankenstein was a large disappointment.
The entire movie’s premise was on the foundational characters of Shelley’s
Frankenstein – the monster and his creator. From here, the producer deviated
from Shelley’s novel and created a very disjointed film adaptation. Even
without having read Shelley’s novel, the movie still would have been mediocre because
of the fact that it is a pilot for a TV series, therefore the ending left many
loose ends because it was to be continued in future episodes. I do give the
movie credit though for its creative take and interesting cinematography, but I
much rather have seen a movie that did Shelley’s Frankenstein justice. 
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