3 Short Paragraphs: I, Frankenstein

2014, Stuart Beattie (Tomorrow When the War Began) -- cinema

I can honestly say I was actively excited about this movie. It fits my type of genre flick so wonderfully, with a tortured mysterious possible anti-hero, more than one type of mythical antagonist and a dark & gritty setting. These types of movies are never good but I enjoy most of them, Underworld and Van Helsing being a pair of my favourites. And considering this one was written by the guy who also wrote Underworld I was expecting a schlocky movie full of great world building and exciting adventure.

What I got was... well, boring. Can I actually say a movie that was basically wall to wall action boring? Yes, because no matter how well done the fight scenes were done, after you have seen them three times you want something else. Think of the opening sequence of Blade and apply it to the entire movie. I cannot latch onto what exactly bored me but it feels like it was the lack of deep world building. It was like the next to last episode in a TV series season, with all the background dispensed for a drive to complete a story arc. Nobody was fleshed out, the bad and good guys were all cardboard and no real motivations -- good guy wants to kill all bad guys, bad guy wants to Be Bad Guy.

The trailer tells you all you need to know. Gargoyles / Angels are fighting Bad Guys / Demons and Adam / Frankenstein (finally, a good reason to call him Frankenstein, i.e. he is the Doctor's "son") is just stuck between the two factions. Fast forward, for no reason than to highlight that he is ageless and have the story set in current times, to the same pseudo-European city that Underworld is set in, where the Bad Guys are trying to recreate the Frankenstein process so they can give the endless hordes of Hell a nice supply of uncontested bodies to possess. So, the Gargoyles and the Demons fight. And fight. And fight. And Frank growls grouchily. And fights.