'Frankenstein' review: Guillermo del Toro's gloriously Gothic masterpiece

WHAT IT’S ABOUT In the mid-19th century, Dr. Victor Frankenstein (Oscar Isaac) embarks on a mission to reinvigorate inanimate tissue — that is, to bring the dead back to life. Exiled from England’s medical community for his experiments, Victor nevertheless assembles chunks of corpses into a whole body and jolts it to life. But when this new Creature (Jacob Elordi, "Priscilla") and his creator turn against each other, they set off a chain of tragic events.

MY SAY Much of what we associate with "Frankenstein" comes not from Mary Shelley’s 1818 novel but from James Whale’s 1931 movie. A few examples: the moonlit graveyard visits, the hunchbacked assistant, the unwisely swapped human brains, the lightning that revives the Creature, the little girl he accidentally kills and the angry villagers who burn him alive. It’s Whale’s film, working from seeds in Shelley’s novel, that gave shape to what we now think of as "Frankenstein."

Enter Guillermo del Toro, whose new version is not an update but a backdate. It’s a brooding, luscious, macabre chiller — Romantic with a capital R — that returns the story to its original author. Here, no breast goes unclutched, no lapel ungrabbed, no cape unswirled as the characters quiver with emotion, flirt with madness and rail against their destiny. Though del Toro’s film, like Whale’s, invents characters and alters the narrative, it’s more faithful to Shelley’s exploration of such gargantuan themes as life, death and fate.

Opening, as the book does, with a naval captain (Lars Mikkelsen) whose ice-encrusted ship is improbably visited by a shivering, raving Victor, the movie sets a pleasurable tone somewhere between epic and campfire story. Now we’re listening to the tale of a young doctor determined to surpass the one who raised him (Charles Dance). Backed by a wealthy arms dealer, Heinrich Harlander (Christoph Waltz, sparkling darkly as always), Victor sets up shop in one of those sprawling, rotting castles that exist only in movies and nightmares. (The fantastical production design is by Tamara Deverell.)

All that back story comes from del Toro, and he continues to refashion the familiar. Victor’s Creature is not laid flat on a gurney but curled downward, like those Angels of Grief found in old cemeteries. And unlike Boris Karloff’s lumbering, mummified monster, Elordi’s blue-hued incarnation is grotesque yet beautiful — a del Toro specialty (think of The Amphibian Man in "The Shape of Water"). What’s more, this Creature does not just grunt and groan but, as in Shelley’s novel, finds its voice and tells its tale.

"Frankenstein" features a high-point performance from Isaac, who storms and screams Byronically while looking terrific in a rippling white blouse courtesy of costume designer Kate Hawley (who also bedecked del Toro’s "Crimson Peak"). Elordi nicely balances the Creature’s beastlike rage and sensitive intellect. (It's a preview, perhaps, of his Heathcliff in next year’s adaptation of Emily Brontë’s "Wuthering Heights.") Mia Goth plays Harlander’s forthright niece, Elizabeth, who tries to bring the lofty Victor down to earth.

The genius of this "Frankenstein" is that it revives what Shelley saw as the tragic bond between Victor and his Creature. As they vow each other’s destruction, they are god and man, father and son, the sinner and his sin. Del Toro has called his "Frankenstein" not a horror film but a drama — and indeed, it’s brimming with emotions, sensations and ideas. To echo a famous line: It’s alive.

BOTTOM LINE A gloriously Gothic masterpiece that returns the pop myth of "Frankenstein" to its origins.

By Rafer Guzmán

rafer.guzman@newsday.com