Monday, January 27, 2014

Stitched Together from Corpses

Go watch this instead.
In Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, the monster is actually quite intelligent - blame Universal's take on the monster myth in the 1930s for giving us the idea of the shambling, mentally-slow creature.  Mary was a woman ahead of her time in many, many ways (read more about that here) but it's true that the monster was stitched together by mad scientist Victor Frankenstein from any number of newly-dead corpses.

Sort of like the plot of I, Frankenstein.

OK, maybe that's a little harsh.  Then again, maybe not.  When a movie has its release date changed three times and isn't advanced-screened for critics, well . . . that's not a good sign.  Honestly, this movie is a stylish mess that ignores its own internal rules.  Gargoyles and demons are fighting a war that's been going on since Satan fell from Heaven and this war has to be kept a secret from humans.  That must be why the gargoyles have set up headquarters in the cathedral located in the middle of some unnamed Euro-city, while the demons run things from a sleekly-antiseptic corporation-with-a-laboratory in the same town!  And I'm willing to grant you that humans can be pretty darned oblivious, but surely someone would have noticed the streaming pillars of fire that erupt when a demon "descends" or the blindingly bright shafts of light that stab through the night when a gargoyle "ascends."  (Or maybe the citizens just think there are a lot of new car lots opening in the middle of the night - I don't know.)  I wanted to find some neat points about the gargoyles being all religious and medieval while the demons were all corporate and Armani-clad, but honestly - I just couldn't care that much.

It's a waste of some good actors, but it gives you an opportunity to wonder, "Hmm.  Had to be a contractual obligation movie."  You've got Aaron Eckhart (Two-Face in The Dark Knight), Miranda Otto (Eowyn in Lord of the Rings) and Bill Nighy (who's worked in everything from Hot Fuzz to The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel and he's shown up in the Underworld movies before and this is set kinda-there), for gosh sakes!

Hot mess.  But, with previews, it provided me with nearly two hours of time to eat buttered popcorn on my birthday, so it's not a total waste.

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