Aaron Eckhart plays the legendary character Frankenstein’s Monster in the action/horror film I, Frankenstein. Here is our review, right after the jump.
Take Mary Shelly’s classic character, add a sprinkle of Aaron Eckhart and Bill Nighy and mix using Stuart Beattie as the director. A great formula I hear you cry. Well, sadly it isn’t. What you get is a horrid mess.
Stuart Beattie may come as an unknown to many, seeing as he has only one other film in his directing credits – Tomorrow, When the War Began. Yet he is beloved for his screenplays and stories. After all, the man wrote for some huge films, including the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie, 30 Days of Night, Collateral and G.I. Joe: Rise of Cobra. Now, he is given a $65 million budget to put a spin on the classic Frankenstein story.
Aaron Eckhart (Two-Face in The Dark Knight) plays the Monster, made by Viktor Frankenstein. We see a quick clip of him killing his creator at the start and then we move along to what happens to him following the book. Yes, this is a sort of sequel and not a remake that we originally thought. 
In short, the monster is attacked by some demons but rescued by some gargoyle/people and taken to a queen of some sorts. She then decides to piss all over the memory of Mary Shelly and call the monster, Adam.
Adam (cough) then decides to walk into a forest and kill a couple of demons and when he walks out of the forest, we are suddenly in a modern setting. There is no real explanation to this, just a throwaway line, “When I returned, the world of man had changed.”
The screenplay, which is Beattie’s strong point usually, is atrocious. Full of exposition and ridiculous speech, it is relayed back to the audience by some god-awful acting.
How can this be? Aaron Eckhart and Bill Nighy are excellent actors. Well, they are surrounded by, shall we say, not so strong performers who ham it up. Even Jai Courtney, the new John Connor in The Terminator reboot, is very weak here.
Some of the effects are decent, whilst some not so much. It looks a lot like a cheaper Underworld movie and who knows, maybe that was the look they were going for. If you like Underworld, expect to be disappointed. If you hate Underworld, expect to be disappointed.
Overall Thoughts:
A huge disappointment, I, Frankenstein is a patchwork quilt of awfulness. Let’s hope this is a one-off and not the start to a new franchise.