TheRPGSite

By special request of Godfather Punk. What the heck, youtube movie rentals are less than my daily coffee.

The first two minutes or so of this movie are deeply misleading.  Aaron Eckart does a voiceover narration as he limps across the snowy wastes of the Arctic carrying a body, flashbacks to Mary Shelley...

I mean, in some ways the opening two minutes are some of the most accurate movie renditions of Frankenstein I've ever seen, the most faithful to the literary source if you will. Of course, by habit I avoid those high minded arthouse versions of Frankenstein that TRY to be all faithful, so that might not say much about cinema...  

But there are some things here that stand out in context.  First, the Monster is not at all sympathetic, any complex character building, any sense of conflict within him is almost entirely accidental, borrowed liberally from Shelley almost by accident.

I'm talking of course about how he murders Elizabeth Frankenstein to get revenge on Victor for having... I dunno... dumped his body into a shallow river? In the book its for lying about making a bride, a companion for Adam while planning for his own nuptial bliss, but its still some cold blooded shit.   Then, after Victor dies to the cold, Adam hauls his corpsical all the way back to... um... transylvania?... to bury him in front of the family crypt.  Eckart is acting his best here with no dialog, but at this point its all borrowed and later to be forgotten.

It starts to go off the rails almost immediately after when three dudes show up to beat up Adam before he's even finished shovelling. I remember cheering when I saw a D&D-esque Mancatcher in the theater.  One Demon (and one only...) transforms and, sigh, he looks goofy as shit with his 'demon head' on, Adam spikes one with a random... headstone?... iron thingamagig that happens to look a lot like the papal cross, which kills it.

Then... sigh... gargoyles show up and finish off the remaining two demons, find Victors journal before it gets buried, and, uh, capture... the unconscious Adam.

Right here, RIGHT FUCKING HERE, the movie has gone off the rails as far as I'm concerns. Gargoyles are the ancient sacred enemies of Demons, sending them back to hell. I mean, they fly and mostly look like really attractive people. Wings.

Anything about that description remind you of something... say? Who are the traditional enemies of demons anyway?

Oh, right. It was Gargoyles all along, silly me.  

I could do a forty page rant about Hollywood's stubborn refusal to handle basic theology with anything resembling sanity... mind you I'm an atheist... but now isn't the time. Lets just suggest that they seem to be afraid that if they made Angels the good guys they'd somehow convince the Christian Moral Majority to burn down the American Sodom or some batshit crazy conspiracy theory and leave it at that?

I feel the odd need to point out that this was directed by Stuart Beattie, the guy who did some of the Pirates of the Carribean Movies, as well as at least one GI Joe film.  It was also written by Kevin Grevioux, the mastermind behind the Underworld franchise. Somehow... somehow they just... missed. Everything.

Moving on.

So the Gargoyles (Sigh...) take the Hollywood Unconscious Adam back to their... castle?... and introduce him to their queen. Of course they also chain him up (badly) and constantly threaten to kill him for no particular reason. They are the good guys?  Or is it Adam, who murders innocent young women because he doesn't like their fiancee?  

At this point (three minutes in) and I'm rooting for the Demons.  I mean: Clearly they are assholes, but at least they KNOW they are assholes.  Its... refreshing.

Oh, and Jai Courtney is in this. As a Gargoyle (Sigh...).

What is it with Jai? I mean: He's not a bad actor. He's got screen presence. Why is it that everything he is in (at least outside of Australia. I can't speak for IN Australia...) is utter shit?  Its like his agent has got a nose for bad scripts and undead franchises and presto! More Jai Courtney flops than you can shake a stick at!  Also: He's playing an asshole. But a "Good Guy" asshole. He is the assholiest of the Asshole Gargoyles so far.

What do I mean?

Well, the Queen Gargoyle, who so far is the only half-decent human type person (gargoyle, whatever) in this film introduces him as Gideon, her Most Trusted Warrior while they're walking down a hall and expositing, and Jai Courtney gets this smug-as-fuck look on his face, that 'I just fucked your girlfriend, what you gonna do about it' level of smug. This is after (and too) the guy he's been advocating they just up and kill because... reasons?  I mean: This film is well known for its ham handed exposition (or at least it was until Jupiter Ascending took the Heavyweight Champion Of The World title for ham handed exposition for the next two thousand years...), but their reasons for wanting to kill Adam more or less boil down to 'well, the Demons want him for some reason, so... yeah.'

Oh, long tracking shot: The Gargoyles live in teh attic of Notre Dame, I guess.

Oh. The Gargoyles were... commanded into being?... by the Archangel Michael.

Yeah. I'm... gonna let that lie there and fester a bit.  I'm sure the film is going to give me LOTS of reasons to come back to it later.

See: Jai Courtney gets to point out that Adam killed Victor's wife, which at least SOUNDS like a reason to hate him. And then, sigh, Leonore (the queen) names him Adam, because damnit.

So our Loner Ninja Badass Monster, Adam, goes his own way, despite... you know... his main motivation (in the book...) being a desire for companionship, but not before a bit of walk and talk about demon-killing and a mandatory gift of demon-killing weapons.

So the world building thus far isn't bad. Demons walk the earth in 666 legions (how big is a legion you ask? Silly movie goer...), and the Gargoyles ( not Angels, goddamnit...) hunt them.  Demons are killed by 'sacramentals', which pretty much means 'blessed stuff', which includes ANYTHING marked by the symbol of the gargoyle order... you know... a Papal Cross.  Well, that's as awesome as finger-crosses against Vampires, amirite?

Oh, and Gargoyles are 'ascended' if killed by something soulless... like a demon, or (duh duh DUHHHHHH... for later anyway... a sorta undead Aaron Eckhart?).  So, yay?

Also, it seems like good ol' Michael isn't that great a soldier of god since it seems that he failed to send anything like 666 legions of Gargoyles (ugh) to take on all these Demons running around. Like: its a plot point right here and now that the Gargoyles are running out of peeps before they run out of creeps...  

So, anyway; Frankie picks up some sticks as his weapon of choice, and we get teh mandatory bad-ass moment where Ophir the Gargoyle tells him he doesn't want no sacred sticks because they are too damn heavy (so... why make them? And just because you add heavy sound effects doesn't make them heavy, mkay?), and Frankie just shows he's been studying escrima or some shit in between woman murderin'.  


Anyway: we get some more voice-over narration as Adam montages some training and demon 'descending'.

Now, in my comments about Dracula Untold, I talked about how the film was better than its parts because of strong characterization, plot and themes.  In the first twenty minutes of the film we're already seeing the opposite here, as its already used up its borrowed cachet from literature.

Adam, Frankie boy, has no purpose, no motivation. He's the classic loner-antihero type, so even his decision after 'unknown years' to return to Paris to hunt demons because they are hunting him is flat. At best its reactive as hell, at worst its nigh on nonsense.

By the end of the film (if memory serves) we'll have some vague thematic idea of redemption or being a real boy or some shit as Adam gets to bang the cute scientist that was working for the bad guy.

And the bad guy? He wants to create soulless life to bring more demons to the world because... well, I guess everyone needs a hobby.

So we have a Character with no character,  half assed johnny come lately themes, and a plot so thin you could use it to filter coffee.  Does that sound about right?


Anyway: despite having offered Adam sanctuary in Notre Dame any time he happened to come by, the 'gargoyles' kidnap him and chain him up without a single word.  Worst.Good.Guys.Ever. And that includes the 'Angels' in Legion, which surely contends mightily with I, Frankenstein for worst misuse of theology in cinema.  

Meanwhile, we do the typical modern film-making trick of never completing an entire scene and we cut back to the demon-lab where they have a conversation Victor Frankenstein that... well...

Look: I like the idea of toying with in-setting fiction that is in-setting fact and all that, but then there is the odd comment that 'electricity couldn't be harnessed in 1790' which... what? I mean... dafuq?  Ben Franklin's famous Kite experiment was 1752 motherfucker.  I believe he later invented a hand crank generator, and we haven't even talked about the possibility of ancient sumerian batteries yet.  For that matter, Frankenstein was published in 1818, which means that Mary Shelley undoubtedly had at least SOME grasp of what sort of technology was available in 1790.  You know, like I know about 8 track tapes in the 1960s and brains in jars in the 1950s...

See. Its that sort of stupid throw away bullshit that makes me eat computer monitors when I watch this shit.

Anyway, we cut back to Adam and Leonore yelling at each other about how the war must be fought and souls and shit and.... you know? It occurs to me that this film is just badly structured. I mean: Other than a voice-over montage in the woods, and moving from ye olden days to ye modern days, what exactly changed in the ten minutes or so since the Gargoyles last had him in Notre Dame in chains?  I mean: Leonore got a bit more bitchy or something, but...

See, right here we have a sign of a movie that doesn't really know where its going. Protagonist Leaves, Protagonist comes right back. Plot... advancing?  Also, all of this crap about souls and potential souls would have been very well placed in the ORIGINAL SCENE, when they first chained him and all that and kept talking about killing him.   I'm almost ready to lay money that at some point he'll be dragged back to the Gargoyles and chained up for YET ANOTHER SCENE about... um... loner-ninja-badass and souls.  

So apparently the Demons have known all along where the Gargoyles are based and were watching it, and so they assault in great numbers for a set piece battle that should look really cool but... doesn't. I mean sure: every demon that dies turns into fireworks, and then when the numbers start wearing on the gargoyles they turn into pretty blue lights acending to heaven... but really it just drives home how very lame the Demons actually are. I mean: They're just dudes with the ability to make their heads really ugly and cheap looking. Yay?

And I'll remind you that the reason Adam was dragged back to the Cathedral and chained up wasn't his failure to become a real boy in 200 years, but because he was fighting demons in the streets, all breaking the Masquerade or some shit.

Crap. Now I want to go find a copy of Demon: The Fallen and see what absurd term White Wolf invented for why demons are all secret squirrely.  I mean: This is almost literally the very next scene, with flying rock monsters bursting dozens or hundreds of demons into fireballs right in front of Notre Dame.

Oh, and Jai Courtney has to assemble his axe before he can fight, because looking cool equals being cool or something.

Anyway:  the whole attack is a diversion of some sort to... capture Leonore? What? I mean, wasn't the whole idea to get their hands on teh Monster so they could make more? Now its Leonore they were after? And seeing as she's supposed to be a Gargoyle too, how the hell is a single demon supposed to capture her while the others are out fighting?  Seriously, movie!

So if the movie jumped the rails earlier just by going Gargoyle, then wandered in the wilderness for a while to come full circle, now its out there having fist fights with wolves or some shit, just utterly lost and slowly losing it's mind...  

The sad thing is that scattered throughout this mess are little gems, pearls that could have been the crown of a great story arc within the framework of what we have. Ophir and Kaziah, who die protecting Adam and their forbidden love that is only explored once the characters are dead, Jai Courtney's desperation to save Leonore at any cost and his comments about being a dying flock of vigilantes, and the one they almost committed too, Adam's quest to become a Real Boy, that sort of happens by default.

There are the roots of pathos there, left to rot in a fallow field.  But pretty lights, yo!


I'm going to save myself a lot of time: All the conversations in the film are stupid.  When there is no talking its actually not terrible, but every time they put dialog in a scene it eventually devolves to the dumbest thing ever until the next scene.  Sometimes the Dumb is a stinger for the scene, a pithy idiot-ball quote to signal they are done, time to cut to the next scene, other times its the entire scene.  I'll give an example of each, from back to back scenes.

Jai, having give up Frankie's Journal to the demons for Leonore is talking with Leonore about how they lost 16 Gargoyles and how they should just kill Adam instead of finding him and... I dunno... bringing him back. Again.  Whole conversation is just time wasting and utterly missing anything at all (other than a single opener line that is then ignored) about how Jai basically disobeyed ALL THE ORDERS to give the journal over in the first place.

Then, when pretty science girl/love interest/soul catalyzer is commenting about how many volts (15000) it took to bring Adam to live, Disposable Science Guy 'stings' the scene with 'if he survived all that at birth, what would it take to kill it'?

Because it is a well established fact that one's ability to handle difibrilation shocks directly corresponds with how bulletproof your skin is.  Duh.

No, that's just dumb. It didn't even sound all that cool. Just dumb. I can't wait until the demons kill this guy for shock value later in the film. One less character to say stupid lines.

Hahaha...

Okay, so while all that stupid dialog is happening, Adam is sneaking around the office/lab/mansion thing the Demons have.  Its... I dunno... ten minutes of 'nothing happens', but there is some awesome tension music going on while he does it.

Cut to... cute science girl pouring coffee. Music, however, does not cut.  Most.Stressful.Coffee.Pour.EVAH!

Then it cuts out, briefly, while Adam looks over her lab while she drinks her coffee, then cuts back in so he can do the superhero landing bit.  

So... pouring the coffee is tense and full of dramatic music, but taking a sip while being spied upon by a monster? No stress at all, brah.

Anyway: Despite having just taken on a small horde of demons, somehow a... small horde of demons... 'traps' Adam so Bill Nighy can do his best human impersonation. You know, honestly I think that was a missed trick in this film, exposing Bill Nighy as "prince Naberius", the Big Bad from the get go. I mean: Still obvious as fuck he's the bad guy, but what is the point of, halfway through the movie, having him pretend to be human to our 'protagonist' and the Audience, when we all known he is a demon?

An even more clever move, I think, would be to actually just have him be a human who was unwittingly funding a research project that the demons were using for their reincarnation scheme.  Spend the whole movie sure this guy is the big bad, only to find out that he was just a patsy? I know twists are so passe these days, but at least putting them in made writers, you know, think a little about what they were doing.

Anyway: Adam escapes so easily it reveals he was sticking around just long enough to let Bill Nighy do his fake human schtick, falling onto a subway train and being somehow shocked to his very core to read that... in fact... Victor Frankenstein made him in a lab.  I know. Shocked, I was. Just like Adam.

And the Demons figure out that Adam just hit puberty or something because... cute science girl is right there, and all, so they... send her home. Apparently this involves swapping out her cute science girl dress for tight jeans?  I mean: I know some people change clothes for work, and all, but do they really do it AT WORK?   Oh, and then she sees she is being followed by the head assistant demon, Zuriel so she runs.. right into Adam.

So Adam has moved from MacGuffin Protagonist to... 'I need answers about myself' protagonist. Really?  Give it a think: What hte fuck does Adam need to learn from Victor's Journal? How to make a Bride of Frankenstein?  That... would make more sense than what they went with. Apparently Puberty won't be complete until he learns about his own peculiar form of the birds and the bees?

"So, now, you sew the skin in all sorts of photogenic patterns, then you apply ze electricity for five seconds and Voila, the stork comes and now you are ze real boy!"

Seriously: Mad Libs Motivations might make more sense than this.

Anyway: it is ridiculously hard to take their conversation seriously when they keep referring to an ancient war between Gargoyles and Demons, with Cute Science Girl even saying she doesn't believe in Gargoyles and Demons.  I mean: I believe in Gargoyles.  I don't think they come alive and fight demons in an ancient secret (cough...) war, but I sure as shit believe they exist.  Oh, how conveinent and even 90's style Ironic that Zuriel, the number two demon not only shows up just then, but also does that stupid fake-head reveal that seems to be the only demonic power they actually have.  

Oh look; Zuriel ALSO fights with two sticks! I wonder if anyone ever told HIM they were too heavy and crude and blunt?  

By the way: Did you know you don't get a soul until you've had a good boning? Me neither, but apparently that's how it works.  Its Virgins who should be getting all the 'soulless' jokes, not gingers. We gingers get laid like pipe, tru fac.

Anyway: Since no one other than Naberious/Bill Nighy has anything resembling an actual motivation in this flick,  Adam and Cute Science Girl split up so she can get Disposable Science Guy out while Adam gets betrayed by the Gargoyles/Leonore.  Oh, look: Jai Courtney dies on his stupid 'some assembly required Axe' because Adam has no soul, since he hasn't boned yet.  Oh look, an hour has gone by, time for Disposable Science Guy to get killed by Bill Nighy to put Cute Science Girl into Damsel in Distress mode.

Oh look: since no one has anything resembling actual Motivation in this flick, Adam burns Victor's Journal before going to rescue Cute Science Girl, so he can get his Bonin' on and get him that sweet, sweet soul action.  Or, you know, pick a fight with all the Gargoyles, so he can lead them to the Demons who are, naturally, within line of sight of the Cathedral where the Gargoyles have been since the dawn of for-fuckin-ever.  That works too.

So. Forget everything I said about how boning leads to souls. Apparently I was wrong, the movie misled me. Its not sex, its massive amounts of electricity.  Who knew?

And in case you needed one more case of 'what's my motivation' whiplash? The Gargoyles who were just all about murderizing Adam suddenly save his life because now he wants to bone the cute science girl. Its, like, his Higher Purpose.

I'm not even kidding.  Like, just before one last voiceover narration from ol' frankie boy, Leonore says 'because you found your higher purpose' and Adam looks right at cute science girl and they give eachother 'bonin' face' like right there.  I'd be shocked if they got out of Leonore's throne room before the totally earned boning commenced. I mean: They totally had chemistry you guys! Especially once Cute Science Girl saw Aaron Eckhart's Abs in that one scene!



Damn this movie. Its like a How Not To on storytelling.    

I will say one good thing: Bill Nighy never kills any of his own people, unless you count disposable science guy.   So there is that going for it.  That's a big one in my book.  

I will say another good thing: Kevin Grevioux is set up for a big, bad-ass mini-boss fight at the end, then dies like a chump When Gargoyles Attack.  Of course, the actual mini-boss of the movie was Zerius who died just a little after the half-way point, so its kinda a wash for me. Pacing, yanno?


Seriously though: How fucken hard is it to think up an actual motivation for your MAIN CHARACTER?  Does, like, no one do this anymore? Set up the motivation of the Hero, and the Motivation of the Villain and have them collide violently?  That's... like... not even 101 level shit. That's like Zero-level, college prep level writing advice.    Hell, that's underselling how basic that is.

Seriously, I can imagine during filming Aaron would be like "Whats my motivation?" and the director would be all like "To stop the villian" and Aaron would be 'But why?" and the director would be "Because... he's the villian and you're the hero, that's why!"

Cut print, burn in a trash fire.

Nice, thanks! No what other Classic Universal monsters have had a cgi laden reboot recently? :D
(I asked about this movie because I had seen DU and I,F in the same week, a few months ago. I remembered mostly Dracula, and your reviews probably show why.)

I remembered Adam fighting with two weapons but not that they were heavy sticks.
And I recall him being enlisted by the angels (except the one who didn't like him) to fight the demons, and he refused but then he did. And the pretty lights.
I had totally forgotten they were gargoyles, or the modern day setting.

QuoteSeriously, I can imagine during filming Aaron would be like "Whats my motivation?" and the director would be all like "To stop the villian" and Aaron would be 'But why?" and the director would be "Because... he's the villian and you're the hero, that's why!"

And now I have to check if Screenrant has done a pitch meeting for one of these.

Quote from: Godfather Punk;1069599Nice, thanks! No what other Classic Universal monsters have had a cgi laden reboot recently? :D
(I asked about this movie because I had seen DU and I,F in the same week, a few months ago. I remembered mostly Dracula, and your reviews probably show why.)

I remembered Adam fighting with two weapons but not that they were heavy sticks.
And I recall him being enlisted by the angels (except the one who didn't like him) to fight the demons, and he refused but then he did. And the pretty lights.
I had totally forgotten they were gargoyles, or the modern day setting.

And now I have to check if Screenrant has done a pitch meeting for one of these.

Now that I read that bit again, I can totally see it being done in a Pitch Meeting video.  

Speaking of Classic Universal monster movies, there is some trivia about how Dracula Untold was supposed to be an entree into a new shared universe, specifically the Mummy reboot, and some talks about Selene and the Underworld Vampires making an appearance in I, Frankenstein... neither of which panned out.  

Now: I rather liked the new Mummy movie, but then Tom Cruise is pretty reliable in that even his bad films tend to be enjoyable, and I have a sneaking suspicion that he would never accept a script where his character's motivations were so... not there. Of course, he'd also never play a 'loner-badass' like this, because he's got to be the shiny hero type, but honestly that was one of the problems with I, Frankenstein... it was trying so desperately to be edgy that it wound up being dull.

I suspect reading Spike's reviews are more fun than watching the movies!

I see that Hollywood has the winter of your deepest discontent too Spike.  Perhaps you should review 12 Angry Men (1954 I think) to clean your pallet of this vile trash.  At least with these angry men you will actually get character motivation, character development, and a plot that is actually intelligent for once.   Though that may depress you seeing the days when Hollywood cared for silly things such as quality.

tldr

I fucking hate Hollywood because all they produce is shit in these days.