Escape to the Movies: I, Frankenstein

JenSeven

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Oct 19, 2010
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Mooboo Magoo said:
Fdzzaigl said:
Sorry, but what monster?

The guy playing the Frankenstein film looks like the ideal man with a few makeup stitches. The whole premise that the monster of frankenstein looks like that makes me go "lolwut".
Well to be fair the monster was supposed to look 'beautiful' insofar as he was made from the most aesthetically pleasing parts. The horrifying aspects of the monster came from the fact that he was very clearly dead. His skin was all sickly looking and didn't really move right.

But yeah...the 'creature' in this movie is way too healthy looking. Maybe he got better?
I don't think they made the monster out of bits on newt.
And they can already regrow their tail. Wait, that gives me an idea.

Making a Frankenstein's Monster-like giant lizard man would seem like a preferable idea to the one portrait in this movie.
 

Lightknight

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Nov 26, 2008
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Eh, well at least it's not bad. I felt like this movie came out of absolutely nowhere. It's kind of a weird trend to take old IPs and then throw them into entirely new worlds and most of the time I don't like it. Mostly because I'd rather see new characters and leave old characters in their own realm unless a really great and meaningful clash comes around. But I guess every writer/producer/etc is going to think that their movie is special and worthy of appropriating established characters into their vision, so... "eh" again.

When I saw the trailers for this, I thought this had potential but expected it to be nominal or bad. Nominal is thankfully the better of the two.
 

Terminal Blue

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Feb 18, 2010
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SnakeoilSage said:
Okay I'm sorry, but for someone who spends the length of this review acknowledging that something like I, Frankenstein is a B-movie, Bob (and a lot of other reviewers I'm watching today) seems to be under the impression that because people have started to embrace said B-movie silliness (either honestly or "ironically" which is just another way of saying "I love them but I have the insecurity of a Batman fan who refused to come out of the closet about it until Frank Miller turned him into a psychotic jock i.e. something that appeals to the mainstream") then that movie should be some kind of fantasy mix of B-quality yet A-quality?
There is not one singular way of "loving" a movie. People don't enjoy The Room for the same reason they enjoy Citizen Kane, and yes, contrary to the imposed Hollywood notion of fixed single-interest marketing demographics there are people who enjoy both. Ironic enjoyment is not an insecure or closeted enjoyment, it can be extremely passionate and overt. I spend far more time ranting to people about the quality of movies I've enjoyed ironically than those which genuinely gripped me. Ironic enjoyment is an enjoyment which is based on a sense of dissociation from the events which occur on screen which would kill a more serious dramatic movie, because said dramatic movie wants you to feel something and if you aren't then it's failing. You mention MST3K, which is the epitome of ironic enjoyment. The basic format of the show is about breaking immersion for comic effect.

This isn't a straight B movie, it's a movie with a B-movie premise but it's getting a theatrical release. It clearly has a serious budget and competent people making it. It's not an Ed Wood movie, it's not going to fail that badly because everyone involved kind of knows the basics. They aren't going to make the kind of obvious or hilarious mistake, the absolute worst they can do is to be boring.

Annd something geek and cult cinema really needs to learn is that merely having a cool or outrageous premise does not mean you have a good movie by default. The problem with not asking very much of the audience is that it's very easy to bore them, particularly if the movie you make does not actually live up to its ridiculous premise in execution. This is why people like Bill Nighy and Michael Sheen were such gold for the Underworld series. I mean, fuck.. Sheen almost single handedly made Twilight: New Moon worth watching. Watching someone put their heart and soul into a premise which the rational part of your brain knows is so silly, or at least having a hell of a time with it, is incredibly engaging in a way which goes beyond irony. Watching competent (or "competent") but bored actors phone in their lines or bluster over everything with generic grizzle is just dull. It doesn't matter how good the premise is, it's still dull.

A premise doesn't make a movie. The people who make a movie make a movie. If they don't buy into the premise and follow it through, then the premise is a failure no matter how cool it might sound. It's all very well to watch Frankenstein fighting Demons, or Autobots fighting Decepticons, but none of it means a damn if the end result is boring.

The idea that you cannot comment on the quality of geek movies because they're not "high art", or that doing so is somehow intellectual snobbery is actually kind of insulting. It perpetuates a view of the world in which there is only one measure of quality, where only an elite group of film consumers can have any kind of meaningful appreciation of films and everyone else will be fine as long as you jangle some keys in their face for an hour and a half and call it a wrap. What is actually poisoning the film industry right now is the assumption that mainstream audiences (which now includes geek audiences) are stupid, that they have no appreciation of quality, that the only thing that matters is whether your marketing department can trick the bovine masses into seeing your film, not whether your film is actually worth seeing.
 

blackrave

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JoJo said:
To be fair, an important theme of the original book was that the monster looked horrific and because of this was rejected by ordinary humans and his own creator, changing him from a sensitive being into a vengeful murderer, so him looking like a regular man doesn't really fit with the book this movie is supposedly a sequel to. With that in mind, I wonder how the movie deals with the fact that as their 'hero' murdered three people including a small child in cold blood in the book, probably ignore it I imagine >.>
Yeah that part never made sense to me.
I mean, I understand that it is hard to hide that monster is reanimated compiled corpse
But besides stitches and other methods of holding parts together, shouldn't parts be as good as possible?

As for murdering 3 innocent people, I guess you can always turn into reason for seeking redemption.
Hell, the very line at the end of trailer implies that Adam considers himself to be damned.
 

MaddKossack115

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Jul 29, 2013
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SnakeoilSage said:
Okay I'm sorry, but for someone who spends the length of this review acknowledging that something like I, Frankenstein is a B-movie, Bob (and a lot of other reviewers I'm watching today) seems to be under the impression that because people have started to embrace said B-movie silliness (either honestly or "ironically" which is just another way of saying "I love them but I have the insecurity of a Batman fan who refused to come out of the closet about it until Frank Miller turned him into a psychotic jock i.e. something that appeals to the mainstream") then that movie should be some kind of fantasy mix of B-quality yet A-quality?

This is the same mentality that has transformed the video game industry into a ridiculous march of "Triple-A" game titles trying to stamp out every ounce of fun and creativity from its products and force people to buy more Mario and Call of Duty rehashes. If people can't see how much of an arrogant snob that makes theme, when they sit there talking about how much they love these films but they need to be "better" then they are not contributing to the healthy growth of the industry that is willing to embrace unorthodox ideas and take risks with unique material. They are the cancerous tumor that is slowly killing the industry's ability to think and create.

IT IS A B-MOVIE. By its very definition it's not going to reach the lofty fantasy ideal you're holding it to. I'm not even sure what it is you're are looking for. Shakespeare with special effects? Another way-overrated Dark Knight? You sit down, you enjoy the oddity of watching Frankenstein fight demons and gargoyles, and you stop expecting it be some kind of genre-defining moment. You don't have to turn off your brain, but stop expecting it to give you a cerebral blow job.

You know there's a reason people enjoy bad movies from the 50's, 60's, 70's, etc. Part of it is thanks to MST3K giving us the ability to recognize and enjoy a film for its cheesy, low quality antics, and the other part is an an honest love of the odd and unusual, for whom going to a movie isn't about getting your snob on and bemoaning how terrible movies are these days. I was banging my head against a wall when I saw the trailer for Vampire Academy but you know what? So what. Let people flock to it and enjoy more teen vampire angst. Enjoy friggin' Twilight and all its stupidity. Let Aaron Eckhart fight CGI monsters. At least we're seeing something unique and creative. At least we're seeing Autobots fighting Decepticons. At least we get a memorable Bane performance.

Seriously Bob. I'm starting to really doubt your geek-cred right now. More "characterization" from Frankenstein? Seriously? Go read the book. There. Done. Characterization out of the way. Let's get back to FRANKENSTEIN FIGHTING DEMONS. Because the concept is so off-the-wall and FUN that I don't care if they don't spend thirty minutes pouting about some inane BS invented to make "Adam" look deep and mysterious or some shit like that. You know what his character was in the Universal classic? Growly retard. Watch the film. Now tell me do you live that old movie because it's a B-movie that makes no excuses, or because someone in your college film class told you it was a classic?

I enjoyed this movie and I enjoyed it's oddness. I mean, who the hell whines about how geeky ideas are simultaneously a) taking over Hollywood, yet b) don't get enough support and C) are garbage anyways?! PICK A SIDE already. Me, I'm on the side that supports a fun idea. I don't care how badly it turns out. The insecure people still afraid of what the world will think of them for being passionate about a hobby can scurry back to supporting watered-down "geek" like The Dark Knight, Bruce Wayne sitting in an apartment that isn't the Bat Cave pouting about his not-girlfriend, and pretend it's an exemplar of geekdom. I, Frankenstein? This shit is all geek. And I refuse to apologize for liking it or enjoying it.
...Um, when Movie Bob was talking about the B-Movie Stuff, he meant that (and I apologize for going to caps-lock mode, but I want to make sure you see this, since you've seemed to ignore most of the parts he states these points in his review) HE WANTED THE MOVIE TO BE A MORE GOOFY B-MOVIE, AND THAT IT WAS TAKING ITSELF TOO DAMN SERIOUSLY TO BE A GOOD B-MOVIE. THE PART HE CLAIMED FRANKENSTEIN'S MONSTER WAS CHARACTERIZED TOO LITTLE WAS BECAUSE TOO MUCH TIME WAS WASTED BORING US WITH THE DETAILS OF THE ANGEL/DEMON WAR, I.E. PUTTING THE SETTING OVER THE CHARACTERS, AND I THINK HE WOULDN'T HAVE LIKED IT IF THEY DID CHARACTERIZE HIM TOO SERIOUSLY EITHER.

So to summarize, he was doing the exact OPPOSITE of what you were talking about - he wanted the movie to be more blatantly silly and hammy, not more serious and convincing.

Edit: As for the whole thing about how geek movies can simultaneously "A) Take over Hollywood, B) Don't get enough support, and C) Are garbage anyways" is because the guys making those movies (outside of Marvel), aren't actual geeks, but just money-grubbing idiots who only think in terms of accounting, wanting to milk the most money out of a film for the least cost and effort (focusing on "least cost and effort" even though "most money" goes to movies with some actual EFFORT put into them, rather really good, or faulty yet enthusiastic). In short, this means A) Big Hollywood is snatching up all the geek movie ideas they can to ride on the Marvel film gravy train, B) the geeks who DO know what they're doing often get passed over for hacks who only ask for a slightly lower paycheck for nothing in return, and C) the schlock from the hacks is... well, garbage.

Again, this isn't the WORST movie he's seen about Frankenstein, and not an objectively BAD film, but is still too reserved and cautious to be a real B-Movie.
 

04whim

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Apr 16, 2009
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I, Frankenstein, BayMNT and Robocop. Three entire movies I'd forgot were even a thing all in one video.

This seems like the sort of film where you watch the action scenes, and fast forward through all the talking.