"Frankenstein" review — Del Toro reanimates classic monster tale with dark beauty
“Victor!” Far to the north, at the distant white edge of the world, a Danish sea captain and his weary crew find themselves slinging pickaxes against the thickening ice that has steadily crept its way up the hull. Freezing and running out of food, they are greeted one night by fire far out on the distant planes of infinite ice with the body of a broken and bleeding man beside it. A stranger in these parts. A trapper, perhaps. His rifle would suggest he was hunting some sort of game. But he is not alone. A roar of a beast echoes across the great reach as they pull the dying man aboard the vessel. The monstrous creature lumbers nearer, wrapped in distressed fabrics. It’s taller than any man, tears through the crew with ease, and will not fall to rifle shot nor bayonet. What manner of being is this? A man? An animal? A demon? The dying man knows far too well what he has found there in the Arctic. It’s a baleful shadow — and his great creation. As Oscar Isaac’s violent and sadistic interpr...
