Guillermo del Toro’s version of Frankenstein is yet another big-budget movie going straight to Netflix for some reason, instead of getting a wider theatrical release (which is a topic deserving of it’s own analysis). I haven’t seen any of Guillermo del Toro’s other movies, so it was definitely cool getting to see a completely different style than a lot of other directors. He really stands out in modern movie world where a lot of films definitely feel the same, and I will definitely be checking out more of his work after this. I also am almost completely unfamiliar with the story of Frankenstein other than the very basic stuff that everyone knows.

Now, practically all of my positives are things that Guillermo del Toro has been notoriously good at his entire career, the first one being the practical effects. You can tell from this movie that del Toro really goes for practical effects over digital ones whenever he can, and when he does, they look amazing. Frankenstein’s Monster, even before he is a fully realized living creature, looks amazing, and some of the gross, even sort of “body horror” effects that went into it were really well done. Even the design of Frankenstein’s Monster (or Creature as it is labeled in this movie, I guess), while it probably could have been better in my opinion, was well made for showing facial emotions, which is obviously important for the story.

The sets were an incredible standout, too. Del Toro starts off the film with this fully realized old world that was incredibly immersive and that pretty much carried on throughout the whole film. The sets inside the building that Frankenstein assembled the Creature in were easily the standouts for me, though. They are very grand-scale and just plain impressive in every way. The practical effects also come into play here with the way the sets moved and stuff. It was some really impressive work, and of course made me even more confused as to why this isn’t getting a wider theatrical release.

The visuals as a whole were definitely my favorite part of this film. Aside from the practical effects and sets, the cinematography was definitely impressive as well. Not only was the film beautiful to look at, but the visuals played into the tone of the story, with the darkest moments story-wise having the darkest look, and the big, revealing moments and character-driven moments of the story having a brighter look.

This film was honestly a bit of a mess, though, in my opinion. The first big reason is that the film makes its point very early on with all the “Frankenstein is the real monster” stuff, and so the pacing really dragged throughout the entire runtime. Characters constantly warn Victor Frankenstein, and it makes the emotional payoffs at the end really ineffective because they pretty much already happened, just in a less climactic fashion. I wasn’t a fan of this at all, as I think subtlety was easily the biggest problem with the film overall, which carries over into my next point.

Easily what killed this movie was, in fact, its subtlety. Del Toro went for a voice narration approach for the story, and I don’t really know if that’s faithful to the original source material or not, but it really made it hard for me to connect with the story or characters. Instead of letting you just live with these characters and experience their emotions with them, it just basically tells you what you should be feeling and thinking. Even then, I found the narration a little bit on the obnoxious side, with the over-the-top dialogue that was used. I get it’s supposed to be an adaptation of a very old story, where over-the-top dialogue was definitely prominent in that era of storytelling, but in the modern era, it doesn't work, at least for me.

This made the story also feel a little outdated and predictable as well, which I completely understand is a me problem. The fact that it got its point out early certainly didn’t help, but even then, I would’ve known, or at least had a feeling of where the story was going, because we’ve seen this trope in storytelling so much. Blade Runner, Jurassic Park, and even The Terminator, just to name a few, have all used the trope of either artificial beings finding life and purpose, or the warning of genetic engineering and how it's essentially playing with God and doomed for a bad outcome. Like I said, I understand that this is probably a me problem, but I would have appreciated it if del Toro had changed things up a bit for modern times.

Yet another thing the subtlety, or rather, the lack of subtlety affected this film was in it’s emotional moments. I thought pretty much all of them were trying their hardest to be as emotional as possible, but without the proper setup, which made them come off as manipulative to me. This mainly had to do with the writing of the Creature. We get a point in the story where we fully see from the Creature’s perspective, and while there were a few moments where we got to see the humanity inside of him, there wasn’t nearly enough to make me connect with him. I also found the performance by Jacob Elordi as the Creature to be pretty lackluster, however controversial that may be. I stated earlier how I liked that the design of the Creature made it to where it could show facial emotions more clearly, but I don’t think the actor utilized that well at all. I also really wasn’t a fan of the way his narration sounded, unlike Oscar Isaac’s, and found it to be kind of obnoxious, actually, as I already briefly mentioned.

All of this led to a really unearned ending, and one that was, again, emotionally manipulative. The Creature makes a decision at the end that felt completely out of nowhere, and you could tell that, yet again, it goes for an emotional payoff that just simply didn’t work at all. It felt abrupt and took me even further out of the movie than I already was.

With all of the positive buzz going around this movie, the fact that it was directed by a filmmaker with an incredibly good reputation, and the fact that it was a modern retelling of a classic story, this was easily one of the bigger disappointments of the year for me. I'm really glad people are liking it, though, I just wish I could see why.