Guillermo del Toro has had several iconic films, but he takes a swing at one of the moat iconic monster stories of all time with his adaptation of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. His new film dropped this weekend on Netflix.

Frankenstein has been adapted multiple times, but this new version certainly has that flair that del Toro films seem to have. It is somehow both a heart-rendering tragedy and filled with life at the same time.

The story is of arrogant doctor Victor Frankenstein, who lost his mother as a boy, which inspired him to take on death in an attempt to defeat it. This led him to work toward a goal of animating a creature made up of pieces of corpses. His success would lead to terrible tragedy for both The Creature and himself.

The Creature is played by Jacob Elordi, who played Elvis in the biopic entitled Priscilla. He does an amazing job taking this character that we all know and reinvigorate him. There are some wonderfully powerful scenes with Elordi as the Monster.

Victor Frankenstein was played by Oscar Isaac, who is always great. In this, Victor does not have much redeeming about him and really feels like the villain of the film. Even Isaac seemed to have trouble making this guy likable. Much of the told through Victor’s POV, but some of the best scenes did not include him.

The film looked absolutely tremendous. It was said that del Toro insisted on using some real sets instead of using CGI and it showed. To be fair, the rendering of the wolves were not the best use of CGI I have seen. The rest of the film looked spectacular.

The music of the score was beautiful, building mood throughout the film. Alexandre Desplat scored the film, which was the third time that del Toro and Desplat collaborated on a film.

There are some things that happen in the movie that I have never seen before in a Frankenstein film, which was welcome. It may be a touch too long as it felt as if it dragged some in the middle, but the overall quality of the movie is exceptional and it fits right in with some of del Toro’s classics.

4.1 stars