I thought that this movie was going to be a retelling of the Frankenstein story, but it was not. Instead, it was a continuation of the story... in a way. After the monster was created and ran amok, the doctor went hunting him in the frozen tundra only to die. This movie picks up there with the monster who is only a monster based on the idea that he A) was sewn together from dead bodies, B) was then given life by the intelligence of a scientist - not a god, and C) has no "soul."
This movie was brought to us by the producers of the Underworld series, and I very much enjoyed them. Unfortunately, they decided that what they needed to do was the same damn thing they did in Underworld, just a whole lot worse. They establish that two factions are waging a war that humans know nothing about, and there is one creature who is not either of them who can control the outcome of the war. Instead of vampires and werewolves, they have demons and angels. It's like if The Prophecy had been made completely wrong, included Frankenstein for no particular reason, and couldn't get Christopher Walken.
Aaron Eckhart plays the monster striving to find a soul. He's supposed to be the hideous beast that no one can set eyes on without crying out in horror. So, of course, they leave his normal face and add a few scars across it. I'm not sure the writer actually read Frankenstein before setting off on writing this thing, and I'm positive that no one in the production of the movie itself has any idea what that story was about or how the monster (whose origin, I remind you, they glossed over) actually came about.
Bill Nighy plays the head bad guy. He probably got the call from the Underworld producer and figured, "Hey, I can go do real work, or I can shovel this script and get a beefy paycheck." I don't blame him for going for the money, but I can't absolve him of the sin of being in it.
Yvonne Strahovski plays the sexy scientist who is being paid to try to reproduce Dr. Frankenstein's experiment, even though she doesn't actually believe that Frankenstein ever existed. Instead, she is starting from scratch with her assistant and somehow manages to get a rodent to come back to life in the first scene we see her do anything in.
Non-makeup effects are pretty good
Acting is mediocre
Story is pretty terrible
Dialog is pitiful
Directing is bad
1.5/5