Frankenstein is a monster that has been done to death and beyond, a creature that has spawned countless movies, spin-offs and the like. But its origins lie in Mary Shelley’s novel, a story about a fragile man and his creation that has largely been forgotten and dumbed down over the years. To remake this story and tell it right would be a worthy endeavor.

Instead, we got Victor Frankenstein.

Why Hollywood executives continue to believe that audiences want origin stories is a mystery that will likely never been answered, which means that origin stories and prequels will happen for at least the rest of my lifetime. If those origin stories could at least be good, that would be greatly appreciated…

Victor Frankenstein has a strong cast--James McAvoy plays Dr. Frankenstein and Daniel Radcliffe his faithful servant Igor--and ambitious direction by Paul McGuigan, but the movie operates for almost two hours in serious need of an electric jolt. Scene by scene the movie isn’t terrible--Radcliffe’s portrayal of Igor as a circus assistant and the scenes with him receiving abuse by his handlers are interesting--but stapled, glued and pieced together like Frankenstein’s monster, the movie is an empty vessel, a creature without life or purpose.

As the story slogs along--primarily focusing on the not-at-all-interesting relationship between Dr. Frankenstein and Igor, with Frankenstein becoming crazier and crazier--Victor Frankenstein holds your attention for brief blips only to lapse back into the land of forgotten films, a place for movies that are neither memorably bad or cheesy nor profound in any way or form. The movie arguably takes itself too seriously, and in its grittiness loses its soul.

By the time the third act rolls around, the movie has turned into a real yawner. The climax is actually pretty well done--if overly explosive (seriously, there’s lightning and explosions and a lot of theatrical special effects)--though it comes too little and too late. It’s only in the film’s final minutes that Frankenstein’s monster is born, and while I normally enjoy action-packed finales, I actually wish the filmmakers had, given their serious take on the subject matter, returned to what Mary Shelley put to paper. Would the movie have been more interesting had the creature been born to have intelligence and emotions--and to be subsequently abandoned or denied by his creator--to truly establish the framework of Shelley’s original work?

In the end, it probably doesn’t matter. Victor Frankenstein is a bore, a failed experiment with wildly uneven results.

Review by Erik Samdahl. Erik is a marketing and technology executive by day, avid movie lover by night. He is a member of the Seattle Film Critics Society.