Guillermo Del Toro’s Frankenstein is probably the best Frankenstein film to be made yet. It feels much closer to the source material and is an overall well-made film.
Frankenstein (2025) is definitely one of the best films of the year so far. I wouldn’t be surprised if this film got a couple of nominations, especially for Jacob Elordi, who plays the monster/Frankenstein’s monster. I believe that he was a great choice for the film due to his ability to act well with his body, and also his stature helped him a lot. He is very tall and skinny, so that’s definitely helped with the character. The cast all around was fantastic.
I believe Oscar Isaac is incredible as Frankenstein, the mad scientist. This is probably the best performance I’ve seen of someone playing the iconic role of Dr. Frankenstein. Oscar Isaac continues to prove why he is one of the better actors working today, and that he won’t let his Star Wars role pigeonhole him.
He and Adam Driver are definitely continuing to put on great performances in films beyond the Star Wars films they acted in. I have to say this because the new Star Wars films had a lot of good actors, but only a couple of them are still doing good stuff, and Oscar Isaac is definitely one of them.
Mia Goth was also in this film, and I think she was excellent as usual. She is establishing herself as one of the best actresses working in horror. She doesn’t have a problem with sticking within the genre, unlike many actors and actresses. She doesn’t mind doing multiple horror roles, as many feel that they pigeonhole themselves, but she’s doing a good job of doing whatever she wants.
The acting was really great in the film, and a lot of that is due to Guillermo del Toro’s directing. I think this was an homage to older films, ones that gave a lot of strong imagery to the viewer. The kind of move that felt like a spectacle. I’m glad this film is on Netflix, as it will expose a lot of people to this kind of filmmaking. The kind of movie that is big in nature and big in story.
The action is big and the emotions are high, creating a pretty awesome movie. Guillermo del Toro might also get some younger viewers to watch this, as he was a character in Death Stranding. The movie also doesn’t drag, which is good because the film’s length is 2 1/2 hours. I always say films can be as long as they want, but don’t drag and earn that runtime, and this film definitely did.
They had a lot of ground to cover in introducing characters. They also did a good job of showing different perspectives of characters in the film. A lot of films have a hard time doing this, such as Weapons, which I believe shows too many perspectives of characters in the film. With Frankenstein (2025) you just two or three, I believe.
The movie is beautiful to look at, and a lot of that is due to the practical effects being used in the movie. The makeup they used for the Frankenstein monster took hours to do. They could easily have just had him wear a green screen suit and done it all in post-production. But instead, they gave him a unique look and created a new iteration of Frankenstein. I absolutely love this.
They also did a great job of creating sets, instead of doing all these big green screen sorts of things in Frankenstein (2025). They decided to go legitimate and not use as much computer-generated imagery. In a world full of AI and CGI and minimal work, they definitely went the extra mile to make this movie feel and look real.
Frankenstein (2025) also has a great sense of the seasons that it shows. When the film is showing in the wintertime, it looks super cold and frigid, and it’s definitely incredibly atmospheric. The vibes are pretty incredible, and it definitely feels nice and cozy in Frankenstein (2025). But that being said, the movie is very vibrant, so when it’s cold, it’s white as ice, and when it’s bright, it’s bright as the sun.
It’s been a while since we’ve had universal monster movies come out close together. I know that Nosferatu came out recently, and that was a great film as well. The Dracula and Frankenstein stories get told a lot because they’re older, and it’s easier to get the rights to them.
I believe that we should be seeing an incredible Dracula film sooner rather than later. Universal tried to reboot their classic monster films when The Mummy came out with Tom Cruise, but they made it so poorly that it ended the chances of them rebooting the franchise as a whole.
I definitely feel like there’s potential there as long as the films are being made by the right people. A lot of filmmakers grew up on those old-timey monster movies. Even if they weren’t necessarily born when they were around, people like me still grew up with them because of how iconic they are.
Where they are older, they’re easier to find because some of them are in the public domain. So you can watch them just about anywhere, and if they aren’t in a public domain, it’s pretty hard not to find them.
People seem to be enjoying Frankenstein (2025) and also enjoying how much love was put into the film and the source material. So hopefully this means that more universal monster movies will be made with the same TLC. There are definitely a lot of directors who love them, such as Robert Eggers and Guillermo del Toro. I’d be surprised if they were opposed to doing another monster movie as well.
The film doesn’t necessarily allude to a sequel, but they did make so many Frankenstein sequels back in the day. They definitely have a lot of truth, whether it’s from Bride of Frankenstein, Son of Frankenstein, or even House of Frankenstein.
A lot of those older, universal monster movies were combining monsters and had Frankenstein, Dracula, and the Wolfman all in one movie. If they did that nowadays, they could definitely make a lot of money nowadays and follow the same path the Avengers did with individual movies and then group ones.
Time will tell, but Frankenstein (2025) is definitely hot right now, having made 120 million in its limited box office run.
