FRANKENSTEIN
Genre: Fantasy, Horror, Drama
Directed by: Guillermo del Toro
Starring: Oscar Isaac, Jacob Elordi, Mia Goth
Platform: Netflix (Releasing November 7th, 2025)
Rating: 2/5
By Stephen Lackey
“FRANKENSTEIN may be about reanimating the dead, but this movie never comes to life.”
Guillermo del Toro has finally delivered his long gestating take on FRANKENSTEIN. The result is similar to Victor’s creation itself—stitched together with ambition, a few beautifully beating parts, and a whole lot of dead weight. The film spends an exhausting amount of time on Victor’s childhood, clearly aiming to draw a poetic line between his strained relationship with his father and the eventually doomed bond with the monster he builds. Unfortunately, subtlety is not invited to this lab. The emotional contrast is delivered with all the nuance of a lightning bolt straight to the skull.
The pacing is a mess. The first act drags on like a parental lecture you can’t skip, and just when the story finally arrives at the good stuff, the third act sprints toward the finish line like it suddenly remembered it had somewhere better to be. It’s too long, yet somehow also feels incomplete. The story wants to be a sweeping epic, but it never feels big at all. In fact, it mostly feels like a small TV movie that overstays its welcome.
The dialogue was more catered for a stage play with the delivery often being melodramatic to the point of being laughable. Also, when exactly did Frankenstein’s monster become a superhero? He’s always been strong, sure, but in this film, he performs feats so absurdly over the top that he would have to literally be superhuman to pull them off—and it looks downright ridiculous. Mia Goth is the most surprising letdown. An actor who usually radiates bizarre charisma is muted into oblivion here. Oscar Isaac barely registers, and while Jacob Elordi has an imposing presence as the monster, it’s not a performance destined for genre-icon status. Six months from now, most audiences will struggle to recall anything beyond the stitched makeup.
Visually, FRANKENSTEIN carries the unmistakable stamp of a Netflix Original, and not in a good way. Blooming backlights and smudgy CGI try their hardest to hide green screen seams. Real sets are far and few between, and the moments of gore are a mixed bag of fun practicals and goofy CGI. Del Toro is one of the most imaginative visual stylists working today, which makes it even sadder to see a film of his look this bland outside of a few strong costumes and some unexpectedly gnarly gore. This is miles away from Pan’s Labyrinth or even Nightmare Alley.
Even the technical elements feel asleep at the wheel. The score leaves no lasting impression, and the cinematography seems to exist only to confirm that a camera was present. Seen in the best possible setting, on a massive theatrical screen, FRANKENSTEIN still plays like something meant to autoplay in the background while folding laundry.
There are a handful of isolated moments that almost work, but they are floating in a sea of mediocrity. Del Toro’s affection for Mary Shelley’s material is obvious, which only makes the final product more puzzling. How does a filmmaker so full of passion end up delivering something that feels this checked out? FRANKENSTEIN may be about reanimating the dead, but this movie never comes to life.
