Always Good Movies

Direction: Guillermo Del Toro
Country: USA

Guillermo del Toro adapts Mary Shelley’s classic novel with little distinction. One cannot deny the pictorial beauty of certain scenes, but at no point was I able to connect with the film emotionally. This deceptive, CGI-laden spectacle—split into two amorphous chapters—is weak and unsurprising, lacking coherence in several places.

The story follows the immodest, self-centered, and tenacious scientist Victor Frankenstein (Oscar Isaac), whose fierce response to the death of his beloved mother leads him to create an immortal, abominable beast with a soul. The tragic creation—an assemblage of body parts—soon becomes his near-undoing. The monster, played by Jacob Elordi, is not his only source of torment: his brother’s fiancée, Elizabeth (Mia Goth), develops a strange fascination with the creature.

The film’s mechanical execution erases the chilling allegorical power of the myth, while the early de-monstrification and later over-intellectualization of the beast drain the narrative of potency. Feeling more pathetic than frightening, this Frankenstein is a spectacular misfire on all fronts, its flamboyant gothic hues unable to save it from collapse. Del Toro adds a few uninteresting flourishes rather than breathe new life into a story told innumerable times. By downplaying key aspects of the novel, he assembles a needlessly loud mess—one badly in need of stitches.

Direction: Luc Besson
Country: France

With Dracula: A Love Tale, Luc Besson (Léon: The Professional, 1994; The Fifth Element, 1997) reunites with actor Caleb Landry-Jones—whom he directed in Dogman (2023)—to offer a winsome new angle and deeply personal update on Bram Stoker’s novel. Boasting visceral imagery, the film follows Prince Vlad (Landry-Jones) across four centuries after he renounces God for failing to save his beloved wife (Zoë Bleu). Transformed into Count Dracula, an implacable vampire, his only wish is to reunite with the love of his life. A Paris-based German priest (Christoph Waltz) seems to be the only man capable of converting him back to light, but at a steep price.

Occasionally wild and permanently dark, the film thrusts us into the past with an ambitious script, slick direction, and strong performances from an international cast. Besson shows greater interest in the characters’ emotional entanglements than in rigid narrative fidelity or gothic stereotypes. His hybrid approach even finds room for unexpected sword and gun fights.

Taking bold steps, Besson—whose filmography has often been uneven—feels strikingly at ease in this fantastic-mystical register. His vision is elevated by Danny Elfman’s powerful score, Colin Wandersman’s sumptuous cinematography, and breathtaking sets and costumes. This Dracula surrenders to love with such fervor that the quest itself becomes his true damnation. Managing to rise above similarly themed films, Besson’s take should please almost everyone—except, perhaps, the most devoted Stoker purists.