Mary Shelley's Frankenstein: Kenneth Branagh must be destroyed

"Mary Shelley's Frankenstein" is much more faithful to Shelley's classic novel (one of my top five favorite books) than James Whale's famous 1932 version. It's a grand, sweeping horror epic that features stellar production values and a first-rate cast.

I hated it.

In all fairness, I've never seen another movie directed by Kenneth Branagh before, and I've read that his Shakespeare pics are superb. Maybe I'll rent "Hamlet" or "Much Ado About Nothing" someday. Right now, sadly, I must concentrate on the unpleasant task at hand, which is Branagh's rendition of the greatest monster tale ever told, transformed into a filmmaker/actor's sprawling tribute to his own genius. I doubt that I've ever seen a director so in love with himself.

Everything in this movie is overkill, overkill, overkill. And then it goes really over the top. Branagh uses endless, showy camera angles and tracking shots coupled with hysterically melodramatic acting and dialogue by the cast. Robert DeNiro, as the monster, is the picture's main asset, but can only take the material so far. There's a scene in which the monster reads Dr. Frankenstein's diary after escaping from the laboratory, and discovers what he truly is - a grotesque fiend, the sum of dead parts. Is he horrified? Of course, but the scene would have been much more effective, and even moving, if DeNiro had been allowed to play it in a more subdued way, if perhaps the monster had just stayed silent, staring at the dairy with mounting self-revulsion. As it is, the camera closes on DeNiro as he lets out an appalled howl that we see coming a mile away. "Aaaaaagghhhh!!" Oh, the humanity!

As loosely based as Whale's version is, it eclipses Branagh's exercise in hubris in every way. No scene with DeNiro's monster even comes close to that magnificent moment in Whale's "Frankenstein" in which Boris Karloff's creature reaches out to an open window, trying to touch the sunlight pouring inside. After the window is closed, Karloff's face is a mask of disarray as the camera pans down to his huge hands, still reaching out for the light that has mysteriously vanished. It's one of the great moments of movie history, and Branagh would probably have ruined it.

Branagh obviously set out to make a masterpiece, but was apparently unaware of the overblown pretentiousness of the whole thing. The end result makes for a lot of unintentional laughter.

I will, for objectivity's sake, give the picture one star for Robert DeNiro, who disappears into the role, giving it his usual gusto. Whoever put the makeup on him did a bang-up job, and the costumes were nice. Otherwise, forget it. How loud and outlandishly theatrical and how full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. My advice to Branagh would be to stick with Shakespeare.