Guillermo del Toro’s take on “Frankenstein” arrives as a lush, ambitious retelling that aims to reshape a story audiences think they already know. The film pairs classic Gothic themes with del Toro’s trademark visual flair, a notable cast and a sweeping score. It lands somewhere between spectacle and sorrow, impressive in craft but uneven in the heart.
Del Toro is no stranger to monsters, and he leans into that pedigree here with confidence. The movie opens with a striking “prelude” set in the Arctic, where a trapped ship pulls a grievously injured Victor Frankenstein aboard. Unbeknownst to the sailors, The Creature follows them, a towering, elemental presence that upends the voyage.
Onboard, Captain Anderson and Frankenstein take shelter while Victor unspools the tale of his life to the crew. We learn of a hard, rigid upbringing under a distant father who pushes Victor toward medicine, shaping the obsessions that will later define him. The family fractures early when Victor’s mother dies in childbirth and his younger brother William becomes the favored child.
Victor grows into a brilliant but arrogant physician whose peers scoff when he first demonstrates reanimation, branding it a “carnival act” and “trickery.” He finds a backer in Henrich Harlander, an arms dealer with charm and money, and with Harlander’s support Victor rigs a lab inside an abandoned tower. William, now an adult and estranged from Victor, joins the circle along with Elizabeth, Harlander’s niece and William’s fiancée, who becomes a quietly vital figure in the Creature’s life.
The assembly of a new man comes from the macabre: corpses of hanged criminals and soldiers scarred by the Crimean War. When a lightning storm supplies the power, Victor animates his creation, but there is no booming “It’s alive!”—just a sobering, awkward birth of consciousness. The Creature begins by learning small things, including how to say Victor’s name, but cognitive progress is painfully slow.
Tension spikes when Victor, frustrated and fearful of what he has made, sets the tower alight with the Creature inside, convinced the being has perished. That assumption fractures the story and opens the door to the Creature’s perspective, which becomes the emotional core of the second act. Alone and struggling to find footing in a hostile world, he stumbles into kindness from a blind man who helps him learn and feel.
The film pivots into a quieter, elegiac mode as The Creature traces his own development, his readings and missteps, and his obsessive search for Victor. Jacob Elordi’s physical transformation is one of the more daring choices; he renders The Creature with surprising tenderness, conveying more through posture and stare than through speech. When the monster speaks of longing and confusion, the performance makes the creature human in a deeply sympathetic way.
Oscar Isaac carries Victor’s complexity—the hunger for discovery, the cruelty of neglect, the shame of obsession—with a roguish intensity that grounds many of the film’s moral questions. Christoph Waltz brings a suave menace as Henrich Harlander, and Mia Goth offers a steady, affecting presence as Elizabeth. The ensemble keeps the drama focused even when the film’s scope threatens to get away from character detail.
Del Toro’s narrative choice reflects the old debate at the core of the myth: can a person play God without paying? The movie asks that question in long, artful stretches and in smaller, intimate beats, but it never quite forces the audience into a single emotional center. Del Toro succeeds at mood and image, and he occasionally misses the full emotional hammer needed to make this version unforgettable.
Technically, the picture is lavish. Production design and costume work create a world that feels both period and fairy tale, and the cinematography often frames scenes like dark, painterly canvases. The Creature’s makeup and the film’s practical effects are impressive, and Alexandre Desplat’s score swells and haunts in equal measure, underlining the film’s grand ambitions.
For audiences attached to the classic 1931 film, del Toro’s “Frankenstein” is a very different beast—less iconically crisp and more fable-like in tone. It can be admired for craft and performances even if it doesn’t displace the original in popular memory. Still, the movie offers a thick, immersive version of the story and gives viewers plenty to discuss about creation, responsibility and the price of genius.
“Frankenstein” is rated R for bloody violence and grisly images. Running time: 2 hours, 29 minutes. In select theaters, streaming on Netflix November 7, 2025.
