Review: ‘Frankenstein’
2025 / Dir. Guillermo del Toro
☆ 3.5/5
Watch if you like: Nosferatu, The Shape of Water, Saltburn, and the serene beauty of Oscar Isaac’s pulverized leg bleeding into the snow.
Guillermo del Toro’s dream project has been in the works for nearly two decades, and it shows in the incredible craftsmanship on display. In the same vein as the gothic style of Crimson Peak, the amount of detail here is astounding, particularly in the costume design and the exquisitely crafted gore (only del Toro could make a battlefield of corpses look beautiful). Adhering fairly closely to the plot of the original novel, Frankenstein is a long and often uneven movie broken up into two sections focusing on the creator (Oscar Isaac) and the creature (Jacob Elordi). One of his finest performances to date, Elordi’s monster has to be everything from childlike, angelic, wounded, feral, and embittered—all of which he sells by a mile. Isaac, on the other hand, chews every line, and his character is written as so overly awful that he just doesn’t work as a foil. The time spent on him might have been better served by giving more screentime to Elordi and his Beauty and the Beast-esque romance with Mia Goth, which is a highlight that’s bound to become a favorite for a generation of lovelorn goth teens.