“I was given life 200 years ago. I am like none other.”

Anthony’s rating: Not a graveyard smash

Anthony’s review: One of the main plot points throughout I, Frankenstein is control over a fabled journal that could spell doom for humanity, should the bad guys obtain it. The good guys have had it for eons, but it is as useless to them as a turn signal on a BMW, so they decide to do the ONE logical thing: lock it in their vault where it can be stolen instead of burning the damn thing. Which is what they surmise should be done AFTER they lose possession of it. I, Facepalm.

I, Frankenstein is not so much a bad movie as it is infuriating. Even though it’s a barely veiled remake of Underwold (both from source material created by mountain-man Kevin Grevioux), the basic premise should’ve assured it instant awesomeness. You have one-time Two-Face Aaron Eckhart playing the Frankenstein creature who’s still living 200 years later (with an absolutely perfect head of hair despite the rest of his body being mangled to no end…) and finds himself drafted in a war between supernatural forces of good and evil (why can’t those two ever get along?) to determine the fate of the world. Thus, you ask, how badly can it truly fail?

First off, this all makes it easier to understand why the 2010 movie adaptation to popular YA book series Tomorrow, When the War Began was a complete wet fart (I loved the books and had high hopes). Director Stuart Beattie, who helmed and scripted that and this, tried to make them spectacles but, like the creature, didn’t give them a soul. The visuals are interesting and the fight sequences seem adequate, but the tired dialog and nauseating clichés make it just as empty as the non-stop plot holes.

All those things wouldn’t be so bad if at least I, Frankenstein was fun, an adjective that is resoundingly missing from start to finish. Everybody tries like hell to avoid being campy in favor of seriousness, which is the last thing this sad mess needed. I mean, if you can’t make it good, at least make it enjoyable. But Beattie fails to manage any self-awareness, and doesn’t have the ingredients to deliver that. Instead we get a maelstrom of missed opportunities and microwaved moments that made me pine for someone like Gareth Edwards to cut the fat and give me a compelling movie.

I do however have to give kudos to Aussie bombshell Yvonne Strahovski. After helping make Chuck into a cult show and bringing Dexter back from the abyss of its Colin Hanks storyline (at least I hope, I stopped watching it after that), here she completely surpassed herself with a dead-center Kristen Stewart impression, complete with “resting B-face” and absolute lack of interest whatsoever. It might even have been enough to finally have me pay for membership with the Golden Raspberry Foundation so that I can retro-actively log a vote in her favor. Hey, an award is an award, no matter what it’s for.

I, Frankenstein is admittedly not quite as disastrous as other similar genre entries like Stephen Sommers’ Van Helsing or most of Nicholas Cage’s last 20 years’ worth of films. But the gargantuan misuse of a great cast and promising setting makes it one of the biggest disappointments in recent memory, despite the foreshadowing of it’s ominous original release date (late January rarely EVER features good movies). I feel like an anime-style adaptation, in the vein of how Netflix handled Castlevania, could end up a much better medium to successfully bring this property into franchise territory. THAT, I’d happily pay to see.