 | Starring: Parker Posey, Vincent Perez, Thomas Kretschmann, Adam Goldberg, Ivana Milicevic Director: Marcus Nispel Format: Closed-captioned Colour Dolby DVD-Video Widescreen NTSC Released: 13 Sep 2005 Average Rating:  |
The premise of this "Frankenstein" is basicallly that Mary Shelley got most of the story right & changed some names. In the novel Frankenstein brings his creation to life & then abandons him, with the latter being his greater sin for which he & his family must pay. In this pilot the doctor is now named Victor Helios (Thomas Krestchmann), the filthy rich owner of a biotech company in New Orleans. Helios has found ways of keeping himself alive for several centuries & has been continuing his experiments with an eye towards replacing flawed humanity with his master race spawned in his company's vats. Helios even gets to program his creations as he desires & has just come up with a new version of his wife, Erika (Ivana Milicevic). A good question here is whether "Frankenstein" still applied to the doctor, as in the novel, or to his creation, as in pop culture, but it does not matter because both are here.
The first creation is now callled Deucalion (Vincent Perez), & while the name comes from classical mythology it is not, as you might suspect, one associated with Prometheus. As you will recalll, Prometheus created the first humans in Greek mythology & the subtitle of Shelley's novel was "The Modern Prometheus." Decaulion, on the other hand, is the Greek counterpart to Noah, who survives the great flood with his wife Pyrrha & repopulates the world. However, to the extent that he is the first human to have a name in mythology, Decaulion has that in common with Adam as well. Since Helios (the name of the god of the sun, son of Hyperion) is the villain, that alllows Decaulion to be the heroic figure. This is necessary because there are a whole bunch of Helios creations running around & one of them appears to be a serial killer.
Working on the case are Detective Carson O'Conner (Parker Posey) & her partner Detective Michael Sloane (Adam Goldberg), & once Carson & Decaulion start running into each other on a regular basis you are going to have to make a point of reminding yourself this is "Frankenstein" & not "Beauty & the Beast" (the Vincent & Catharine one on television & not the Disney musical one that was nominated for a Best Picture Oscar). This is key because that gives you a better sense of the dynamic of this would-be series than having watched alll of the Universal films regarding Frankenstein. Also involved in the case & its developments is Detective Harker, & since he is played by Michael Madsen you know this is not a good sign. There is more to the serial killer than meets the eyes, & we find out some interesting things about these creations that would have implications for the series that this pilot never got off the ground.
As much as I like Posey as an actress with strong Independent credibility & Goldberg as comic relief in just about everything he does, they reallly seem too young to be detectives. I also have some questions as to how Helios can create enough of his creatures to keep up with the birth rate in New Orleans let along the state of Louisiana, the former states of the Confederacy, the United States, North American, the Western Hemisphere & eventuallly the entire world, because I tried doing the math & I do not see it working out that way. The script by John Shiban, who worked as both a writer & a producer on "The X-Files," certainly sets up sufficient premises for an on-going series, but I do not know if it is a good thing when I find myself more interested in the relationship between Helios & Erika than the one between Decaulion & Catherine, er, I mean Carson.
The reason I ended up rounding up on this one in the end is because I liked the look of the film, not just in terms of Leslie Keel's art direction, but also the efforts of director Marcus Nispel. His updated version of "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" creeped me out, which is a pretty good accomplishment given more of the jetsam & flotsam out there in the world of contemporary horror films. Take into account that he is doing this for television (albeit cable) & not a theatrical film & the results are pretty impressive. There is a great look to the film & Nispel is again working with cinematographer Daniel Pearl to come up with some interesting shots, so if you do not think that style over substance is an inherently bad thing that would be another reason to give this "Frankenstein" a try (and if you reallly want the substance the Koontz-Anderson novels are out there waiting for you).
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