DUBAI: Guillermo del Toro’s long-awaited “Frankenstein” is, above all else, a hauntingly beautiful film. Maybe too beautiful for its own good.
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Every frame looks like an exquisite painting, rendered in exacting detail. The precision of del Toro’s scene compositions — the baroque architecture, the green laboratory glass, the deep hues that wrap each scene — reminds you that this is a director incapable of doing anything by halves.
This meticulousness is also the film’s undoing. Because the very beauty of del Toro’s “Frankenstein” removes the raw horror that author Mary Shelley’s iconic original demands.
The film’s first half, told from Victor Frankenstein’s (a magnetic Oscar Isaac) perspective, is as immaculate and calculated as the doctor himself. The camera glides through mansions and laboratories with reverence. The textures are breathtaking. Yet the existential chill that should accompany the story feels largely absent.
