Big Picture Big Sound

Creation Miss

Just in time for Thanksgiving, "Victor Frankenstein" is a turducken of a blockbuster that you can pass on. Dressed with some camp and ideas, it has enough of both if you just want to get out but not enough of either to make it memorable.

The story is told from the perspective of a nameless, hunchbacked clown (Daniel Radcliffe) whose voiceover recounts his time at the circus. In parallel, we see his pathetic visage, in Pagliacci whiteface, as he's brutally kicked; reverently gazing heavenwards to Lorelei (Jessica Brown Findlay, "Downton Abbey"), the girl on the trapeze; and just as intently studying and beautifully copying anatomical plates from a medical tome.

While the film could travel with Chaplin's tramp, Chaney's Hunchback, or Harry Earles' Hans from "Freaks", when Victor Frankenstein (James McAvoy, "X-Men: First Class") is announced, the film hits the rumble strip and veers to blockbuster excess, hugging mockery. This entry is replete with a crescendo and freeze frame on McAvoy with a graphic treatment emblazoned with "Victor Frankenstein" in woodcut lettering.

Director Paul McGuigan ("Push") peppers the remainder of the circus introduction with syncopated slow-motion, perhaps a revelation with Baz Luhrmann's "Romeo + Juliet" but ubiquitous now, culminating in a particularly boring escape scene for our buddies, where small leaps from McAvoy are given the treatment that should be reserved for flying Spartans,

Guy Ritchie's "Sherlock Holmes" is the most apt comparison for "Victor Frankenstein". Instead of seeing physics and clues all around them, Frankenstein and the clown see the organs and viscera under everyone's skins - the wonder of articulated bones, wrapped in exquisitely drawn muscle fibers. Both films have a polished steampunk design, though IMDB does not reveal an overlap between their design teams.

In quick succession, they break the clown out of the circus; retreat to Frankenstein's residence; remedy the clown of his hunchback; and give him the identity of Frankenstein's absent roommate, Igor. As noted, the escape falls flat, but Igor's cure is spot on.

But, shortly after this, the film loses it's way. It vacillates between flirting with ideas, like the failed "Frankenstein Unbound" or Francis Ford Coppola's more successful "Dracula" and back to courting the bombast of "Sherlock Holmes".

Additionally, Victor Frankenstein, introduces more undeveloped subplots than sides at a Thanksgiving cover dish. It has a bevy of able cooks. Andrew Scott (the "Sherlock" BBC series) is more nuanced than in other roles, but still intense, as Inspector Turpin, a Christian Javert to Frankenstein's atheist Valjean. Bronson Webb is effective as Rafferty, an evil schoolmate cum financier with larger plans for Frankenstein's work, who, if developed further, could have given the film kinship with a "Hellboy". Findlay has even less to work with, a prop in Igor's story. Igor gets the girl, she remains in their circle to the end. However, the most agency she's given is to create a small diversion to distract some of Rafferty's men from eyeing a trespassing Igor at the castle where Frankenstein and Rafferty are on the verge of reanimating their abomination. Radcliffe holds his own opposite McAvoy, while McAvoy's relish as the mad doctor is the best dish at the table. But despite all their efforts, the cast cannot fix the menu writer Max Landis and director Paul McGuigan have designed.