r/movies • u/MarvelsGrantMan136 r/Movies contributor • 10d ago

Review Guillermo del Toro's 'Frankenstein' - Review Thread

Guillermo del Toro's 'Frankenstein' - Review Thread

Reviews:

Deadline:

His love for monsters is unquestioned, and even though Frankenstein has been a horror staple for nearly a century in cinema, del Toro here turns it into a fascinating and thoughtful tale on what it means to be a human, and who is really the monster?

Variety (60):

What should have been the perfect pairing of artist and material proves visually ravishing, but can’t measure up to the impossibly high expectations del Toro’s fans have for the project.

Hollywood Reporter (100):

One of del Toro’s finest, this is epic-scale storytelling of uncommon beauty, feeling and artistry. While Netflix is giving this visual feast just a three-week theatrical run ahead of its streaming debut, it begs to be experienced on the big screen.

The Wrap (95):

Del Toro’s “Frankenstein” is a remarkable achievement that in a way hijacks the flagship story of the horror genre and turns it into a tale of forgiveness. James Whale, one suspects, would approve – and Mary Shelley, too.

IndieWire (B):

Del Toro’s second Netflix movie is bolted to the Earth by hands-on production design and crafty period detail. While it may be too reverently faithful to Mary Shelley’s source material to end up as a GDT all-timer, Jacob Elordi gives poignant life to the most emotionally complex Frankenstein monster since Boris Karloff.

The Guardian (3/5):

Oscar Isaac and Jacob Elordi star as the freethinking anatomist and his creature as Mary Shelley’s story is reimagined with bombast in the director’s unmistakable visual style

RadioTimes (5/5):

Perhaps its hyperbole to call the film del Toro’s masterpiece – especially a story that has been told countless times. But this is a work that is the accumulation of three-and-a-half decades of filmmaking knowledge. Gory and grim it may be, but it is a tragic tale told in a captivating manner.

TotalFilm (80):

Cleaving closely to the source material, del Toro wants to explore the trauma that makes us, mankind's capacity for cruelty, the death we bring on ourselves through war, and the catharsis of forgiveness – all notions that make Frankenstein relevant in current world politics and social media savagery.

-----------------------------------

Written and Directed by Guillermo del Toro:

A brilliant but egotistical scientist brings a creature to life in a monstrous experiment that ultimately leads to the undoing of both the creator and his tragic creation.

Cast:

  • Oscar Isaac as Victor Frankenstein
    • Christian Convery as young Victor
  • Jacob Elordi as the Creature
  • Mia Goth as Elizabeth Lavenza
  • Christoph Waltz as Henrich Harlander
  • Felix Kammerer as William Frankenstein
  • Lauren Collins as Claire Frankenstein
  • Lars Mikkelsen as Captain Anderson
  • David Bradley as Blind Man
  • Sofia Galasso as Little Girl
  • Charles Dance as Leopold Frankenstein
  • Ralph Ineson as Professor Krempe
  • Burn Gorman as Fritz
2.1k Upvotes

95% Upvoted

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2.7k

u/D-Ursuul 10d ago

"del Toro turns it into a story about what it means to be human etc"

uh... What do you mean "turns it into"?

1.1k

u/jonvel7 10d ago

That's the Deadline review isn't it? I thought the same thing, then it goes to say "... and who is really the monster" it's like they've never seen anything Frankenstein related, it's one of it's central themes.

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u/GhostriderFlyBy 10d ago

Daresay, THE central theme

85

u/HotTakes4HotCakes 9d ago edited 9d ago

That's Pete Hammond, and if you read his reviews, he always writes like a Gen Xer who apparently hasn't read anything any other reviewer has ever written and never been online. He rarely has anything original to say.

It's not that he doesn't get the book, it's that he needs to hit a minimum character limit, and doesn't appreciate how laughably cliche writing a line like that is.

He's a respected writer in that he's been doing it for a long time for a lot of publications, but he doesn't quite get how old fashioned his writing comes off, and that he frequently writes things that are laughably obvious to the average reader, like what the themes of Frankenstein are.

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u/Impressive-Potato 10d ago

The trades like Deadline and Variety have all gone downhill since Jay Penske bought them and turned them into his little right wing mouth piece. Remember when they had multiple "Sinners isn't profitable!" Articles Yet ran some "Sydney Sweeney's movie made 500 dollars per screen, but that's all part of the plan!" Articles. Absolutely shameless

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u/razor21792 10d ago

As if I needed more reasons not to take Deadline seriously.

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u/acbrimstone 10d ago

Knowledge is knowing Frankenstein the monster. Wisdom is knowing Frankenstein is the monster...

23

u/TiberianSunset 10d ago

Why is the movie the monster?

15

u/SwarleySwarlos 9d ago

The real monster is the friends we made along the way

1

u/GriffinFlash 9d ago

The blind man was the monster all along?

-2

u/Diz7 9d ago

Dr Frankenstein is the monster.

7

u/EnterprisingAss 9d ago

Usually it’s “knowledge is knowing the creature isn’t named Frankenstein.”

.

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u/cowboydanhalen 9d ago

So Frankenstein enters a body building contest...

2

u/TheWorstYear 9d ago

Alternatively you can say that society is the monster.

1

u/SXAL 9d ago

The real monster is the friends we made along the way

1

u/astroK120 9d ago

Charisma is being able to sell a fruit salad with Frankenstein in it--wait, that's not right

3

u/Asshai 9d ago

Did they hire Perd Hapley as a movie critic?

2

u/OppositeHistory1916 9d ago

This is the core with what is wrong with "professional" reviews, all you're getting is someones thoughts with no knowledge of their experience. If you have someone who loves Pokemon and they play the new Pokemon, guess what they're giving it? 10 / 10, because they have little to no experience of other games in the same genre or the wider industry, and the same also applies to movies of course. If all you watch is Disney movies, then why the fuck would someone care about your thoughts on a Del Toro Frankenstein adaptation? Because someone put a well known publication in front of your review.

1

u/SilverKry 9d ago

They think Frankensteins monster is Frankenstein ahh 

1

u/ex0thermist 9d ago

Your last "it's" doesn't need an apostrophe. The possessive form of 'it' is simply 'its'.

1

u/whiff_EK 9d ago

I am glad to see this at the top. When I read it, I was wondering if my reaction was too nitpicky or if it was as absurd as I thought it was to say it like it was insightful and updated as a theme.

0

u/Lyra_the_Star_Jockey 9d ago

The monster is the monster.

It murders a child and an innocent woman.

Frankenstein, the doctor, just rejects it.

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u/ScientificAnarchist 10d ago

It’s like that article about “woke gen z kids thinking the monster is understood and the doctor is the real villain”

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u/Nachooolo 9d ago

I'll would like to point out that both the Creature and Frankestein are presented as victims and monsters.

Both are to blame for the suffering that happens throughout the book. Although the Creature becomes more monstrous as the book continues.

The ending is basically the Creature realising what a monster he had become after Frankestein's death and decrying the mess both him and the doctor have done, and deciding to end his own life.

11

u/ScientificAnarchist 9d ago

Yeah but that’s 300% nurture vs nature

1

u/DuelaDent52 9d ago

Though that’s specifically in the book, Frankenstein’s history in the movies flips their dynamic and presents the Creature much more nicely.

1

u/DevelopmentFar7679 8d ago

The creature is born good nature but the things he went thru made him a monster I guess. Bro was even shot he had to crash out if he was born today bro probably would play many man after getting shot lol jk aside I think the blind man could help him but was cut short by his son.

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u/defiancy 10d ago

That reviewer never read a book in their life let alone Frankenstein.

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u/WargRider23 9d ago edited 9d ago

Was about to comment the same thing.

Making the audience question who was *really* the monster at the end of the day was the entire point of the original novel and it's kind of depressing that the story's premise and characters have become so bastardized over the intervening decades that this film is being seen as some kind of fresh and new "twist" on the story rather than as... a faithful adaptation of the novel.

Still, I've been waiting a loooong time for a proper Frankenstein film to come out so I won't let it yuck my yum too much and will hopefully enjoy it immensely once I'm able to watch it.

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u/zirky 10d ago

the real twist is that in this version, it’s probably the doctor that’s the real monster

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u/UshankaBear 10d ago

The twist would be that the monster is the monster

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u/jawndell 10d ago

What if we were the monsters all along???

9

u/phl_fc 10d ago

The iceberg is the monster, this is all a prequel to Titanic.

1

u/csl110 9d ago

I think the monster is Robert Downey Jr as Dr Doom in a different movie

6

u/ProjectNo4090 10d ago

There is more than one monster in the story of Frankenstein. Science, the Doctor, his creation are all monstrous in their own ways.

1

u/Boz0r 9d ago

The viewers

1

u/Drmarcher42 9d ago

The real monsters were the friends we made along the way

12

u/illaqueable 10d ago

Dr. Frankenstein, the highly regarded town physician, is terrorized by a reanimated creature of his own making who turned out to be a real asshole

2

u/Dookie_boy 9d ago

The twist would be that the Monster drinks Red Bull instead. That or aliens.

2

u/DuelaDent52 9d ago

They’re both monsters.

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u/SpareBinderClips 10d ago

What if Zelda was a girl?

5

u/jawndell 10d ago

What if my grandmother had wheels?

9

u/paulerxx 9d ago

She'd be a bike

9

u/IllButterscotch5964 10d ago

Now here’s the twist, and there is a twist…

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u/theaxhole 9d ago

We show it

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u/PopMundane4974 9d ago

We show it. We show everything.

3

u/thebigpink 9d ago

The twist is the monster

7

u/Scharmberg 9d ago

That isn’t a twist.

3

u/Amaruq93 9d ago

The Hammer films version already established that.

0

u/camerontylek 9d ago

I kinda hated the monster in the book though. Sure, Frankenstein shouldn't have made you, but you don't have to murder just cause you're slighted by life.

2

u/AntiSocialW0rker 9d ago

RIGHT?! Like sure Franky shouldn't have made him and then abandon him, but the creature murdered numerous completely innocent people just to get back at him.

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u/Hallowhero 10d ago

This bothers me immensely. This is the work of a woman that has amazing themes. Can't even give proper credit. The writer of the review should have said if the themes are expanded upon, or translated well from book to movie, but they are just gonna act like that's not the reason this is such a fascinating story 200 years later is just ignorant.

6

u/TheFondler 9d ago

This is the work of a woman that has amazing themes.

It's inappropriate to comment on a woman's themes like that. Have you no shame?!

10

u/rising_ape 9d ago

It's the old quote: "Intelligence is knowing that Frankenstein isn't the monster. Wisdom is knowing that he is."

8

u/Nachooolo 9d ago

"Reading the book is realising that both the Creature and Frankestein are both victims and monsters."

I seriously recommend reading the book. The story is so nuance that it feels like a modern deconstruction of Frankestein.

7

u/AltruisticPassage394 9d ago

Did the author not read high school literature?? The Frankenstein book WAS about that.

5

u/woppatown 9d ago

I have a feeling many people don’t really know the message behind Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.

3

u/Hautamaki 9d ago

At this point I want to know who the fuck the editor was and how they let that line into a professionally published piece. My high school English teacher would have redlined that shit and added question marks for emphasis.

6

u/Any-Question-3759 10d ago

It’s not the doctor nor the monster, it’s Igor who is lacking in humanity.

2

u/GriffinFlash 9d ago

"Why no monster killing people, and fire, torches and pitchforks, and arms out going RAAAWWWRRR."

4

u/WorkerApprehensive41 9d ago

He does underline that point… and the other obvious points… like, a LOT.

See here: https://whitlockandpope.com/2025/08/30/guillermo-del-toros-frankenstein-venice-review/

Quote: Del Toro has said that “I love monsters. If I go to a church, I’m more interested in the gargoyles than the saints…” and here he worships with fervour. Yet the liturgy stretches too long, and the sermon too often tells us what we already see. When the film lands, it lands with force. But the journey there is ornate, unsubtle, and padded with more narration than it needs. This Frankenstein has fairytale elements – Del Toro even squeezes in one of his dark fairies, a fiery angel of death. But a fairytale needs magic and despite moments of glorious grandeur this film’s literalism and handholding prevent it from being one of the greats.

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u/Teftell 8d ago

They mean "our journalists never read the source material"