I had been meaning to watch Guillermo del Toro's 2025 adaptation of Frankenstein ever since it dropped on Netflix. As someone who has never actually read Mary Shelley's original novel (yeah, literary sacrilege!), I went in with zero expectations except knowing it was a del Toro film, which usually means visually stunning and emotionally complex storytelling.
This is quintessential del Toro - all dark aqua blues, deep greens, and rich browns creating that Gothic atmosphere he's famous for. The production design is absolutely marvelous, every frame looking like a painting, if you were into that whole moody Victorian vibe art. This is definitely a movie that deserves to be seen on the biggest screen possible because of its sheer grandiloquence. Del Toro has this thing about redeeming his monsters, and this newest retelling of Frankenstein fits perfectly into that pattern.
Oscar Isaac plays Victor Frankenstein and he's irresistibly handsome in that tortured genius way. Isaac's Victor is portrayed as a complete egotistical dickhead, which apparently has some book purists up in arms. I read in various forums that readers of Shelley's original have major issues with how this adaptation simplifies both Victor and the Creature's characterizations. The consensus seems to be that in the book, Victor is indeed a piece of work for abandoning his creation, but he was also just a naive young guy who couldn't fully grasp the magnitude of what he'd done. Similarly, while the Creature is tragic, he's also a stalker who intentionally murders innocents in his quest for revenge against Victor - far from the blameless victim we see in this movie version.
The script-writing deserves special mention here. There's this moment where the monster, still learning human speech, says something like "Perhaps this was the way of the world, the world would hunt you and kill you for the way you are." The philosophical poetry woven through the simple words of a creature learning to speak is just brilliant. There are several such dialogues that stay with you long after the credits roll.
The female lead had me scratching my head a bit. She's written as this very righteous, empathetic character – maybe that's how Mary Shelley, daughter of philosopher Mary Wollstonecraft, intended it. Women are often more empathetic than men, sure, but this lady thinks she's wise when she's really just displaying the foolishness of her immature young age. She was literally the only character who could have made Victor see the truth and helped redeem his ways, if only she would get down off her high horse and actually engage with the complexity of the situation instead of just being judgmental.
She falls in love with the creature ridiculously quickly, professing something like eternal love after what feels like two meetings. And wasn't she flirting a bit with Victor, her fiancé's older brother? The whole love angle felt forced, maybe they were staying true to the book, I wouldn't know.
But sometimes a good story doesn't need to be complicated. Del Toro delivered something gorgeous to look at, Isaac brought his brooding good looks and acting, and Jacob Elordi as the Creature got some genuinely moving dialogue.
The Arctic scenes alone are worth the watch. There's something haunting about that ship stuck in the ice, with the Creature framed against a pale sun that looks more like a dying moon. "I am malicious because I am miserable," the monster tells his creator, and you feel every word of that misery in the frozen wasteland that mirrors his isolation. Not every adaptation has to be exactly as the book, sometimes it just needs to be good television.
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