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

Set in an Egypt where Gods live among humans and are distinguished by their golden blood, greater height and ability to transform into animal deity forms, Gods Of Egypt tries to give a CPI laden epic fantasy tale of love, revenge and resurrection. While the plot line is fine and the actors do the best of what is asked of them the movie just feels like its little more than something you would expect to see on the Sci-Fi channel.

The main storyline is the battle between two Gods, king to be Horus and his uncle Set who decides that he should be king and tries to take the crown by force. On the human side Bek is a thief who is trying to rescue his love Zaya from slavery, needless to say both Bek and Horus find they need each others assistance in order to achieve their goals so it becomes a buddy movie with God and man working together to bring down the evil and get love back from the other side.

The main issue with the film (taking aside the controversy of ethnically inaccurate casting which is doing the rounds) is that the action is so fast cut and CGI laden that it almost leaves you confused as to what is going on and half of the time you’re not sure if Gods are fighting Gods or humans, and if Gods can transform into powerful deities than why don’t they battle like that all the time, instead of staying in their obviously less powerful human form. Plus despite the fact that you would expect a God to be able to destroy a human easily the thief Bek seems to be able to hold his own by just using his wit which gives the movie a real sense of improbality, even for a movie about Gods and legends.

If almost feels like that script was written first, they then decided to set it in Egypt and finally added a few names from Egyptian lore to the pages, so if you liked the 2010 remake of Clash of the Titans then you might enjoy in a so good it’s bad way, or maybe watch it with the kids. If you are looking for historical accuracy or deep meaningful content then steer clear.

DJ Speaks Rating: 4.5 out of 10