movie reviews

1. Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein” (1994) Essay (Movie Review)

• Introduction

Frankenstein (also referred to as Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein) is a horror film directed by Kenneth Branagh in 1994 and adopted from a book by Mary Shelly bearing a similar title. In the movie, a young doctor named Victor Frankenstein (Kenneth Branagh) departs from his native land of Geneva to be admitted to a medical school.

At the college, he studies and becomes knowledgeable in human anatomy and in chemistry. The young student has always been fascinated with death, and this leads him to initiate a project to create life. Victor designs a creature with the body parts of convicts and with the brain of a bright scientist. The ‘monster’ (Robert De Niro) comes to life and is thrown into society.

The monster then grasps that society will never accept him and seeks revenge on all persons that Victor loves. As the movie ends, Victor is all by himself as all his family members have been killed. Victor then creates a partner for the creature to love; however, due to the pain he is feeling, he opts to use Elizabeth (Helena Bonham Carter) and resurrects her for his benefit. Eventually, Elizabeth kills herself because Victor and the monster are fighting over her.

As the film comes to an end, Victor dies on a ship while the monster he created is found crying over his dead body. Victor’s funeral ceremony is interrupted when the ice surrounding the ship starts to crack. The creature takes a burning torch and sets himself and his dead creator, alight.

Critical Analysis of the Film

Despite having a fine start, Frankenstein fails to quite come off and does not make a good film for a variety of reasons. First is the films’ duration. In slightly more than two hours, the movie feels a little extended. It is wordy, and the speed drops in some scenes. Part of the problem stems from the film’s familiarity. Preparations for Frankenstein’s journey to Vienna, his encounter with Clerval, his disobedience to the medical staff at the school, and his initial experimentations have all been undertaken before.

The audience knows where Victor is headed to, and Branagh offers no compelling spins to the storyline. This familiarity stems from the fact that several editions of the movie have been produced before. However, the film becomes more interesting in the second half. Here, Branagh uses elements from the book that have not been included in previous versions of the movie.

For instance, the Arctic scenery, the subtle fact that the creature can converse in the human voice and is smart and able to experience pain, the series of events related to William’s death and the creature’s set-up of Justine are all exclusive to the movie, making for an exciting watch. However, for someone who has not watched previous versions of the film nor read Shelley’s book, the movie makes for an interesting watch as a whole.

Another unfortunate aspect of the movie is the rapid succession of scenes, considering that the film runs for more than two hours. Just fifteen minutes into the movie, three years have already elapsed. An audience may find it hard to keep up with the story and might lose concentration midway to the end. Again, the author needs to recognize that tragedy in the film is most effective when it is allowed to develop slowly.

The scenes in Branagh’s version of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein move so fast that some of the subtleties disappear along the way. This gives the movie an exciting and occasionally chaotic (particularly in the first half-hour) piece of work that, while irrefutably entertaining, is short of the depth that a work of this magnitude requires.

However, the movie can be praised in several aspects, especially that of the gorgeous scenery, superior acting of some characters, especially Elizabeth and Robert de Niro, and creativity. From one scene to another, the producer does nice finishing touches and fascinating variations that are easily noticeable.

It is exciting, for instance, to watch Frankenstein play Ben Franklin and hold hands with his family members while lying down! And in another scene, when Dr. Frankenstein pays a midwife to collect amniotic fluid and fill what resembles a cylinder, our interest is held as much as possible.

2) Pride & Prejudice, a 2005 romantic drama film directed by Joe Wright.

Pride & Prejudice is a 2005 romantic drama film directed by Joe Wright, in his feature directorial debut, and based on Jane Austen's 1813 novel of the same name. The film features five sisters from an English family of landed gentry as they deal with issues of marriage, morality and misconceptions. Keira Knightley stars in the lead role of Elizabeth Bennet, while Matthew Macfadyen plays her romantic interest Mr. Darcy. Produced by Working Title Films in association with Studio Canal, the film was released on September 16, 2005 in the United Kingdom and on November 11, 2005 in the United States.

Screenwriter Deborah Moggach initially attempted to make her script as faithful as possible, writing from Elizabeth's perspective while preserving much of the original dialogue. Wright, who was directing his first feature film, encouraged greater deviation from the text, including changing the dynamics within the Bennet family. Wright and Moggach set the film in an earlier period and avoided depicting a "perfectly clean Regency world", presenting instead a "muddy hem version" of the time. It was shot entirely on location in England on a 15-week schedule. Wright found casting difficult due to past performances of particular characters. The filmmakers had to balance who they thought was best for each role with the studio's desire for stars. Knightley was well known in part for her role in the Pirates of the Caribbean film series, while Macfadyen had no international name recognition.

The film's themes emphasise realism, romanticism and family. It was marketed to a younger, mainstream audience, promotional items noted that it came from the producers of 2001's romantic comedy Bridget Jones's Diary before acknowledging its provenance as an Austen novel. Pride & Prejudice earned a worldwide gross of approximately $121 million, which was considered a commercial success. Pride & Prejudice earned a rating of 82% from review aggregator Metacritic, labelling it universally acclaimed. It received four nominations at the 78th Academy Awards, including Best Actress for Knightley. Austen scholars have opined that Wright's work created a new hybrid genre by blending traditional traits of the heritage film with "youth-oriented filmmaking techniques". 

References

“Frankenstein (1994).” IvyPanda, 18 Nov. 2019, https://ivypanda.com/essays/frankenstein-1994/. 

“Pride & Prejudice (2005).” Fanmade Films 4 Wiki, https://fanmade-films-4.fandom.com/wiki/Pride_%26_Prejudice_(2005).