Taking liberties with the Mary Shelly novel director Paul McGuigan puts a twist on the tale and tells the story from the point of view of Frankensteins assistant Igor who is finely played by Daniel Radcliffe. Victor Frankenstein (James McEvoy) is attending the circus as part of his growing need to find flesh to work his experiments upon and during his visit he spots Igor, who is somehow versed with medical knowledge, saving the life of a trapeze artist that he is infatuated with. Frankenstein decides to rescue Igor from this prison of circus freak show attraction, he cures him of his ailments, cleans him up and sets him up with clothes and money.

Igor becomes a willing assistant at first and seems to relish the chance to show off his medical knowledge while helping his benefactor but as things progress he seems to be playing the part of grounding character for Frankenstein as he gets more and more desperate to prove that his theory is correct and goes further and further beyond the lines of decency to achieve his goal. In the meantime McEvoy And Radcliffe are being watched by Scotland Yards best Inspector Roderick Turpin (Andrew Scott) and Scott brings some badly needed tension to the movie as the obsessed, religious zealot who will stop at nothing to put an end to  Frankenstein and his abominations.

There is a seemingly missed opportunity as well with an early experiment of Frankensteins methods being a re-animated monkey creature which acts as a foreshadowing of what is to come but it’s all to easily discarded to get back to the descent into madness of Frankenstein and Igor’s blossoming romance with the woman he saved, Lorelei (Jessica Brown Findlay) when it would have been nice to see this creature rampage a bit as it easily the most frightening piece in the movie.

It’s a shame that movie could not entertain more as the look of movie very much reminded me of Guy Ritchies Sherlock Holmes movies, which is not a bad thing, and with the acting talents of Radcliffe, McEvoy and Scott I had high expectations, but the problem is that the film feel seems to be a mix of plot threads hurriedly patched together akin to Frankensteins monster itself so it feels disjointed which in turn leads to disappointment.

DJ Speaks Rating: 4.5 out of 10