by Jesus Ibarra

Special coupon for Dinuba Platinum Theatre at the end of this review.

I, Frankenstein, an adaptation of a popular comic book of the same name which itself is an adaptation of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, stars Aaron Eckhart as the titular creature. In this adaptation, Frankenstein creates his creature, his creature gets revenge on him for making him and then that’s where things delve into craziness. The creature is drawn into a war for humanity between gargoyles (basically angels) and demons, who want him for some reason.

Christened Adam by the gargoyles, the creature decides to live alone for two hundred years before finally having enough of the demons hunting him that he decides to kill them. That is the basic plot with some more stuff added into the movie when you watch, but I won’t get into it as it really isn’t that relevant.

This movie is not bad, but it isn’t good either. It has a lot of problems which could have easily been remedied and made it a good horror action flick ala Underworld and Blade. First, I’ll start with the good, Aaron Eckhart is one badass ripped dude, and I loved it. He was utterly convincing as a kick ass demon hunter. Also, Bill Nighy is super hilarious, and even if the script wasn’t that great, he still chews every scene he is in. And I absolutely loved the creature design of the gargoyles and demons. Adding to the creature design, was the overall gothic atmosphere which this movie did really well, really drawing on some of what made Underworld a good horror action film.

Now onto the problems. First, the plot itself falls apart in the third act. Instead of having an interesting or ambiguous ending, we get a clichéd one that really was a letdown. Secondly we see too much boring stuff and not enough of the interesting parts. By this I mean we spend about 20 minutes with Adam talking to the gargoyles about nature and god and what not instead of seeing how much of an ass kicker he could really be. This film takes itself way to seriously, not having any tongue in cheek referential dialogue that could have made it dryly humorous, like in the Blade series. Also this should have been a rated R movie, if you are a movie about demons and angels duking it out for the fate of humanity have some freaking blood and gore to distract from the simplicity and poor script.

Overall though it wasn’t an entirely unenjoyable experience, as the actors do really commit to this movie, and the special effects are really really pretty. On a weekend where you don’t have much to watch this is actually a good option.

I, Frankenstein is playing at Dinuba Platinum Theatres 6. Showtimes can be found on their website. Platinum Theaters Dinuba 6 now proudly presents digital quality films in 2-D and 3-D with 5.1 Dolby digital surround sound to maximize your movie experience.

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Jesus Ibarra is 21 years old; with a love of all media, he’s always on the lookout for the best finds. You can read more of his reviews on his website.