Movie Reviews: Victor Frankenstein, Christmas With the Coopers, 11 Minutes

Frankenstein’s monster is a Hollywood horror icon, but Paul McGuigan’s Victor Frankenstein (12A) attempts to give Mary Shelley’s tale a fresh spin. 

Igor (Daniel Radcliffe) is a circus hunchback rescued from a life of ridicule by Frankenstein (James McEvoy), who believes that Igor – a brilliant amateur student of human anatomy – can help him animate the dead.

We see Frankenstein’s world through Igor’s eyes, and while McGuigan retains many of the familiar Gothic tropes – the gloomy laboratory, the descent into madness of a man who attempts to thwart the will of God – the story belongs in equal part to Igor, as he falls in love with Lorelei (Jessica Brown Findlay) and struggles to keep his megalomaniacal benefactor on an even keel.