“… a really fun movie, just not a really good one.”

Remember when Guy Ritchie tried (and succeeded, might I add) to make Sherlock Holes cool? Well, unbeknownst to me the same thing has been done with the story of Frankenstein, minus Guy Ritchie however. I say that I wasn’t aware of this because it wasn’t until last night that I watched Victor Frankenstein. For those wondering, Victor Frankenstein is the story of Frankenstein but told in a highly romanticized fashion. The film follows a nameless hunchback who gets rescued from the circus by a mysterious medical student named Victor Frankenstein. The hunchback receives the identity of Victor’s old roommate, Igor, and the pair proceed to conduct medical experiments that they presume will change the world.

Victor Frankenstein is almost universally panned by critics, and for good reason. This movie is not good, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t love it. The film was written by Max Landis (writer of Chronicle and American Ultra), but I wouldn’t have been surprised if you told me that the film was written by a 14 year old girl. The reason for this is because everything in Victor Frankenstein is told in a way that makes it seem great. Instead of London being a dirty, grimy place, it looks like a great place to take a vacation. Instead of Victor Frankenstein being an insane doctor who is toying with the universe itself, he is a sexy college student who spits a lot while he talks. Instead of Igor being a grotesque hunchback who is merely an extra set of hands for doctor Frankenstein to use, he is also a beautiful man who get’s cured by Frankenstein so that he is no longer a hunchback. Oh, and he is really smart as well. This movie plays out like a fan fiction; but as soon as you are alright with that you can start to have fun with it.

The acting in Victor Frankenstein is alright, I guess. I’m not sure if I can pin it on the actors themselves, or the writing, or the directing, but it all just seems so mediocre. There are a few forced love stories, and most of the line deliveries are either phoned in or hilariously over-acted (seriously, James McAvoy must have spit enough to fill an ocean during all of his scenes). One thing that the film had going for it was that there was always something to keep my attention. If the story was boring me, which it did a few times, I could look at the costumes. If the plot was in a little bit of a rut, there were usually “hand-drawn” illustrations that acted as transitions that were fun to look at. But other times, the story was enough to keep me entertained, with hilarious back and forth between characters, pretty intense action scenes, and scenes that showed a bit of heart. And I was also glad the ending of this film gave Ryan Reynolds the opportunity to revive his much beloved role as Deadpool from X-Men Origins: Wolverine.

Ultimately Victor Frankenstein is a really fun movie, just not a really good one. If you like the Guy Ritchie Sherlock Holmes films, then I would give this one a shot.

I give Victor Frankenstein a B