Speaker #0hello everyone and welcome to the concession stand here on the kb radio network i am your host kevin reed and this is the review of netflix new gothic horror science fiction film directed by galermo del toro frankenstein of course he will direct a frankenstein movie which is based on the 1818 novel by mary shirley frankenstein and in this story in case you have been living under a rock frankenstein tells the story of victor frankenstein who is an egotistical scientist who experimenting on... creating new life that results in dangerous consequences this film stars oscar isaac as victor frankenstein you have jacob ilori as the creature along with them you have mia golf uh christoph walls uh charles dance and many others this is a film that was highly anticipated because of the filmmaker. and the material that he is taking on here uh given to us by netflix i was looking forward to it i'm uh not gonna i'm not gonna sit here and overblow it like i'm a oh man i am a uh frankenstein enthusiast no i'm not it's not my uh go-to uh monster uh property but you know like everybody else you know. of frankenstein you know the story of frankenstein you know the how it all came to be and so i am a fan and i can honestly say i remember reading the novel in school i remember reading frankenstein it wasn't for an assignment of anything like that it's just something that i read and i point that out because i don't do that you know if it wasn't a comic book back then I didn't just freely pick up stuff and read it. That wasn't my bag or a gun to my head. I had to study something for school. But I picked up Frankenstein and read that in high school just because I was into horror and all that back then. And I was severely bored by that book. I was bored to death because, you know, I'm young-minded. not really diving into the story i wanted to read a monster story a horror story and that's not what i got and that's before i really got into the movies of it all because the only movies uh that was an adaptation of the novels around that time was uh the old classic universal monster movies which i wasn't into because they were in black and white and i didn't want to sit down and watch all that. But it was around the time that Mary Shelley's Frankenstein came out. I think Robert De Niro played Frankenstein's monster in that movie. You had Kenneth Branagh playing Victor Frankenstein. I believe he directed it as well. And it was around that time and it was a big hoopla around the movie because it was a new take on that property. So I kind of got swept into that wave and read the book. And I was like, oh my God. is this what the movie is going to be all about um i say all that to say that and i did like uh that version of it liked didn't love it liked it and so i say all that to say this this movie had pretty much the same effect i had when i read the book close to 35 years ago i have alone has been and since i read that book this movie as excited as i was as i was getting into it or going into it i i didn't i didn't feel anything but at the same time i couldn't look away i couldn't stop watching it because it's come on man it's it's galermo del toro man i mean he he knows how to make a beautiful looking film that's the star of this movie the set design the tone the The colors, the lack of colors, everything worked. And he is a master of that. Visual storytelling is his bag. I loved. the world that he built here he was perfect in that aspect of telling this story because it felt like it was a lived-in world it didn't feel like they were on sets or uh cgi was a big part of it even though there were cgi moments that you can clearly see but um that was few and far between and it didn't really take you out of the movie at least it didn't take me out of the movie. I really love this world that he built. The performances were great. I enjoyed the performances. Oscar Isaac wouldn't be shocked if awards start knocking on his door at the end of the year because he gave an awesome performance. And Oscar Isaac is probably one of the most slept on actors in Hollywood. This dude does not mail in performances. Just look at Moon Knight. that's on disney plus the marvel property that came out probably one of the worst marvel shows to come out over the last five years but he was great at it he he he didn't he didn't take that as a paycheck you know he really delivered a pretty decent performance in that show even though the show stunk but he he was good in it and everything else going to star wars uh ex machina and so on and so forth if i go to name and we'll be here forever but he is excellent in everything that he's a part of and he was perfectly cast as victor frankenstein in this movie i i i felt him you know he is the villain and he's a sympathetic villain at the same time but it doesn't it doesn't make you cheer for him at no point did you cheer for victor frankenstein in this film you was just in just just uh uh captivated by uh oscar eyes's performance to make you kind of like him but at the end of the day you couldn't you know he was that he was that type of dude uh jacob allori man look my first time seeing him was on euphoria and i you know he was the little uh douchebag for lack of a better term on that show i always figured that he was going to be a breakout star out of that show everybody else is breaking out but not not really him you don't see much from him um as far as mainstream and this is this is probably the biggest project he's been involved in and he held it down man i was super impressed by jacob elori i I'd didn't know he had that in him i didn't know he was that good i honestly didn't and i'm pretty sure he's been a part of other projects where he was good i just haven't seen him uh i didn't see him i didn't watch the kissing booth movies so i don't know how he did it knows you know i didn't see it was another movie he did a couple of years ago oh man i wanted to see it was on prime and i always told myself i was gonna go back and watch it and i never got around to doing it but that's needed here but he was excellent here as the creature christoph ross as uh as another supporting character i can't remember his name right off hand but he he was good he was christoph ross uh there was no there was nothing extra there i just he's good christoph christoph ross is solid he's just solid i never i never got the super uh big i don't know excitement about christoph waltz you know i always felt he was a great actor good actor but never to the point where i was like man he's a generational talent type guy that you know yes he won two oscars he was he is a two-time academy award winner i would never take that away from him But that's only when he works with Tarantino. But he is decent. His best performance was in Glorious Bastards, which he won an Academy Award for. That was probably one of the best movie villains of all time, without ranking him off the top of my head. But he has to be up in there. The one performance that I didn't dig was Mia Goff. And I'm not a Mia Goff guy. The X movies were the X movies. That's a franchise built around her. So she is going to flourish in those. But I never was a Mia Goff guy. I never understood her. her thing uh here she didn't fit it it's almost it's almost disappointing because i thought that she would fit perfectly in this movie with galermo del toro directing this movie i'm like oh this is a match made in heaven but it didn't it just didn't get there with me with her performance and it wasn't bad i want to make that it wasn't bad it just It was just there and that character is supposed to hold more weight and I just didn't feel it radiate all for her Aside from that the rest of performances were great Speak well since I've got one knock out the way I might as well get another knock out the way Going back to the creature and this isn't Jacob Laurie. This is the direction in the writing of that character. I think uh galermo del toro's love for this character took the edge off of this character uh now look i wasn't looking for a slasher movie i wasn't looking for the creature to go in and just just murder everybody and just be this unstoppable force which he is uh they do show it here in his glory. He is a beast. He is... the most powerful being on earth around this time in the uh 1800s but i i just they made him too sympathetic you know don't get me wrong frankenstein's monster is supposed to have a sympathetic because he's not the villain victor is the villain in all iterations of this uh material that's how it goes i get that but they just made him too sympathetic at at some point you are supposed to fear him i didn't feel the fear from his character and it like i said it's not jacob alluri it's the way this character was written and i think it suffers a little bit because of that uh because you're supposed to be scared of him you're supposed to be scared of him and then you find out that oh he's a big softy you know that that that trope but we didn't get that it just didn't it didn't radiate that But at the end of the day, you ask yourself, hey, is it watchable? Yeah, it is very watchable. The movie's two hours and 30 minutes. Think you could have shaved off 10, possibly 15, you know, because it was moments where it was just boring. It was kind of, I think he was trying to be a little too close to the source material, you know, hitting some points. but he it's like he lingered on a couple of storylines just a tad bit too long you know some subplots that didn't really need to you know um let's get this let's get this train of moving it just lingered at moments throughout the film that it just slowed the pace off i mean this is already a slow movie, a slow story to tell because you're being told a... the story is being told from two different perspectives i like that element of it the way that was uh presented to us and so you needed to have the story move a little quicker and it didn't quite get there but overall i did like it you know it wasn't horrible i mean uh galermo del toro doesn't make bad movies and this isn't he didn't start here so he he is he is still undefeated in my books i just wish it was a tad bit better frankenstein which is currently on netflix gets a letter grade of a b minus strong performances beautifully directed uh beautiful sets yeah and uh landscapes and everything everything about that was great everything about that was great it just lacked in a couple of areas with mia golf and d d softball nature that he treated Frankenstein's monster. But besides that, it is a good watch. I would like to know, did you check out Frankenstein? And what did you think? And how does it measure up to the other adaptations of Frankenstein? I'd like to know your thoughts. Email the show, kbradiopodcasts at gmail.com. You can also search for the show on all social media platforms. Just search. For the KB Radio Network. Also don't forget about. YouTube, subscribe to the KB Radio Network channel, and like this video if you don't mind. Don't forget about the five stars, the reviews, and sharing this show if you're listening on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartRadio, wherever you are currently listening to the concession stand, here on the KB Radio Network. Everybody, thank you for joining me for this review of Frankenstein. I want you all to know that I love you, continue to love. everyone and until we speak again you all be blessed
