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Have you come on the board already, shit stain? Knowing you, ploppy pants, that's the last time you'll be on today so I won't be able to read your reply to my review...I really can’t understand all the negative criticism directed against this film, as it’s really not all that bad.
It’s not without fault, of course, and I was less impressed second time around, but it’s still a sufficiently entertaining movie. Despite being nearly two hours long, the pace never drags, though that’s perhaps one of the major flaws. The first half, in particular, has such a rapid pace that scenes are played out in bite-sized chunks, never letting you get a real feel for the characters or mood. The direction is reasonable, though the overblown score, bright colours and dizzying camerawork do little do evoke the eighteenth century setting. Even the desperate move of casting Mozart himself (Tom Hulce) does little to convince that this really is set two hundred years ago.
Directed by Branagh himself, his almost constant use of circling shots marks him out as a one-trick pony, a gimmick that becomes ever more irritating with its increased regularity. Occasionally the 30s movies are referenced ("It’s alive! It’s alive!" cries Branagh, though with naturalistic/toff delivery as opposed to Universal’s melodramatic/camp coding) though, as the full title should attest, this is a film that uses the novel as it’s source text. (At least I think it does, I ain’t read the f***** yet). That said, the dead boy/girl motif and the blind man are direct lifts from the James Whale pictures.
Acting-wise, Branagh is fine, while John Cleese is surprisingly good in a straight cameo. De Niro, though, gives arguably his worst performance ever as the creature, causing the pathos to seem somewhat forced. This then, amazingly, means Richard Briers gets the acting honours. The bloke from Ever Decreasing Circles winning an acting bout against Travis Bickle? Surely not!
There’s some curious homoerotic imagery as a sweaty; shirtless Branagh wrestles with a naked De Niro amongst oil and chains. In fact, you could even argue that this is a subtext as Ken regularly chooses between the monster and his fiancée. Then again, you could also argue his bearded, longhaired appearance is a Christ analogy. You could make up all sorts of theories, but in truth this isn’t a film with a great deal of meaning. As Branagh himself said in an interview "I just wanted to tell a good story."
A couple of words on the nature of anatomy: wasn’t it fortunate that Helena Bonham-Carter’s neck was the exact same width as Trevyn McDowell’s? And wasn’t it lucky that the creature knew precisely where to grab to find her heart? There are some striking sequences, such as Branagh’s macabre dance with the animated corpse of Elizabeth. But the concluding minutes of pulsing, torn-out hearts and pyrotechnics do extract it rudely from its Renaissance Films origins and into pure Hollywood.
Still, not a terrible film by any means, and if nothing else than you can have a laugh at the name of the Executive Producer on the end credits – Fred Fuchs. I bet he does, too!
Hey - how many Griggs does it take to change a lightbulb?
- Three! One to say he's going to do it, one to bellyache about having to do it, and a third to get round to it, three weeks later. Tee-hee-hiddle-hi-hee!
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