The Film
The 1994 film Mary Shelley's Frankenstein is a classic horror story of 19th century medical student Victor Frankenstein, his quest to reverse death, and the Pandora's Box that he opens as a result. Kenneth Branagh directs and acts in the title role as Victor Frankenstein, supported by Robert De Niro as his creation/monster. Instead of the usual weird science camp of the 1930s version and subsequent sequels, this one stays true to the novel by Mary Shelley upon which it was based. The film opens on a ship venturing to the North Pole with Frankenstein searching for a way to stop this madness and the story unfolds as a series of flashbacks. This version is among the most faithful retellings of the classic novel yet, ironically for the subject matter, it lacks any sign of life. The moral is that you shouldn't play god, but you probably knew that before you pressed play.
The Picture
Visually the Blu-ray itself is almost monstrous -- it just doesn't look much improved from the DVD version. The 1.85:1 1080p transfer also falls short of giving new life to this classic story. And at times it seems to look worse than even older versions, notably in some of the darker scenes, of which there are plenty, where the picture is grainy and muted. This is the case in many of the more elaborate scenes, such as those in the classroom in the Ingolstadt, Germany medical school. In other sequences throughout the film, colors that should be vibrant lack a crispness that we'd expect to see on Blu-ray.
The Sound
A tragedy skirting the horror story genre at its core, sound should also play a role in making the horror aspect seem all the more foreboding. Instead the 5.1 DTS HD Master Audio soudtrack lacks any significant sparks. While there are the usual spikes in volume, the surround sound effects are all but flat lined from beginning to end. In scenes where the creature moans, particularly from a distance off screen, the potential of DTS sound is lost.
The Extras
It is disappointing that Mary Shelley's Frankenstein comes with no extras, other than the fact that it is BD Live enabled. It's surprising that even a director's commentary couldn't be mustered up for the film as Kenneth Branagh directed and acted in the movie. Some might even see the film as a vanity project, but here we see that even the vanity was lost.
Final Thoughts
For its faithful telling of a classic tragedy, Frankenstein as written by Mary Shelley in the early 19th century, this Kenneth Branagh project is worth the addition to the library if you don't own it already. But the lack of extras and disappointing remastering of the film weigh against the Blu-ray release. This one is frankly dead on arrival.
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