A+ Best Movie Of The Year!

I haven't seen I, Frankenstein yet, but I greatly admire the cleverness of the title of this pan: And You Thought Fire Bad

Not as good as the Underworld or Underworld: Rise of the Lycans (which I loved), but still entertaining. B

It sucks.

Oh, my. I watched this with very low expectations, of course, but I enjoy the Underworld franchise as far as it goes, so I thought this spiritual cousin might provide a modest dose of entertainment. This, however, is an astonishing failure on every level. It is hard to know where to start while criticizing it because there is so much wrong here. Lasting around 90 minutes, the entire film, which places the title Swiss doctor's itinerant creation in the center of a centuries-old war between gargoyles and demons, plays as a frantic trailer for itself. Explanations are condensed or disregarded entirely. Characters leap into action without justification or motivation. There is not a single pause in the name of atmosphere nor character development nor even a basic level of coherency. There are deadly earnest lines such as, "I am a demon prince, and you will kneel before me!" and "I, descender of the demon horde. I, my father's son. I, FRANKENSTEIN."

It is downright sad, cringe-worthy even, to remember how great Aaron Eckhart is in, among other films, In the Company of Men, The Dark Knight, and Rabbit Hole and then to see him here as he growls, grunts, flexes his stitched-together muscles, resembles the aging singer of a bar-circuit Alice Cooper tribute band, and otherwise refuses to emote. As for the aforementioned action sequences, do not expect them to be the sole redeeming quality: staged in warehouses or on the urban-generic streets of a city with no visible human population, they become monotonous in the worst way, a bland cycle of of smashed concrete and digital demon fireballs without notable choreography or even a hint of tension.

F

Yet another shitty movie I watched because I had absolutely nothing else to do. I still got mad respect for Aaron Eckhart, but this was utter crap.

Up there with The Legend of Hercules as one of the worst of the year.

D+

My expectations were already low, but the film did its best not to meet them. It is barely entertaining, but mostly just embarrassing and makes all Underworld-films look like fucking genre classics. In particular the decision to go PG-13 is really odd and hurt the film, drowing it in CGI-flames and deaths. Bill Nighy phones in his performance from Underworld. Jai Courtney is Jai Courtney (and sucks), Miranda Otto seems uncomfortable in the film, Aaron Eckhart is probably the best-looking Frankenstein's monster ever and Yvonne Strahovski plays a fairly useless damsel-in-distress. Glad that this bombed and we will see no more.

Poor Yvonne Strahovski.

I, Frankenstein

Let's cut to the chase; it's trash. But it's mildly watchable trash. It's Aaron Eckhart being Aaron Eckhart, only he's Frankenstein (or Adam, lol) and has a patchy makeup job that is sometimes there and sometimes not there. Bill Nighy is yet again the leader of an order of eternal super-beings, Miranda Otto is the leader of opposition (gargoyles) and her henchman is none other than the busiest working actor in Hollywood today, Jai Courtney. *groan*

The effects are pretty crappy, CGI channels are reproduced multiple times, and the dialogue is pretty lame. But there are some highlights; Yvonne Strahovski being one of them. No, wait, she is the only highlight. Despite her learning of a world where demons and gargoyles battle each other for supremacy and taking it in her stride, she is gorgeous and very watchable as she brings much needed elegance to the charade. Eckhart, while ripped, just wasn't present when making this movie (business as usual, really). The script has issues beyond its dialogue though, and that brought it down to a level that even most TV productions can overcome; like how the gargoyles say "it's a war fought in the shadows", but their legions persistently fly around the Paris-esque city in full view. But some bad movies can be good on an aesthetic level. This isn't. It's really dark and reminded me of some fantasy computer game level that you cannot complete, so you end up endlessly running around, in the dark, getting bored and frustrated with it until you turn it off. It appears to be Beattie's second directorial effort after Tomorrow, When the War Began, and to be honest, he should just stick to writing (he penned Derailed, Collateral, and Australia among others).

D+