Frankenstein Review: Guillermo del Toro Reconstructs a Classic Monster in His Own Image

No Frankenstein adaptation happens in a vacuum. It’s not just Mary Shelley’s 1818 novel which precdes any new telling of the story Victor Frankenstein and his monster. Filmmakers must also contend with the 1931 James Whale movie and its superior 1935 sequel. Even the Mel Brooks spoof Young Frankenstein looms larger over any update.

So it is to his credit that Guillermo del Toro doesn’t try to be a modern Prometheus and do a wholly original take. Instead of pushing Baron Victor Frankenstein and his Creature (as he’s credited in the film—not Monster) away from Colin Clive and Boris Karloff, del Toro urges his actors to be even more emotional, more menacing, and somehow more humane. Through its lushness and empathy, combined with romantic visuals, del Toro sends a bolt of lighting through the familiar story, making it altogether his.

At first glance, del Toro’s Frankenstein hews closely to the source material. It opens with icebound Scandinavian sailors discovering a contrite Baron Victor Frankenstein (Oscar Isaac), who shares with the captain (Lars Mikkelsen) his tale. Victor tells of his imperious father’s (Charles Dance) tutelage, his beloved mother’s (Mia Goth in a shroud) untimely death, and the arrival of his bright-eyed brother William (Felix Kammerer). A brilliant surgeon who wants to succeed where his father failed, Victor endeavors to conquer death, a feat helped along with unlimited financial support by an arms dealer called Henrich Harlander. During the process, our not-so-good doctor also falls for Harlander’s niece Elizabeth (also Goth), who happens to be William’s fiancée. Eventually Victor thinks he’s succeeded when he gives life to a nameless Creature (Jacob Elordi), but soon enough he learns that his inability to teach his creation is just the beginning of his troubles.

It should be noted that at this point, just over halfway through the movie, the Creature takes over as narrator, explaining how he developed speech and befriended a kindly blind man (David Bradley, actually playing a nice elderly person in del Toro movies, at least). Yes, this Creature is verbose, something absent in most post-Universal Frankenstein adaptations, but present in the Shelley novel. Also, unsurprisingly given the director’s love of monsters, the Creature’s section is where del Toro truly distinguishes his take. The filmmaker and his team of makeup and special effects artists give the Creature a beautiful design, adorning Elordi’s sizable frame with seams that recall speed lines. Most Frankenstein adaptations make the Creature an innocent, but rarely has the character been portrayed with the tenderness that Elordi brings. The way he nuzzles his face into to any person kind enough to come near him communicates his longing for human connection better than any of the many speeches he delivers.

Those who would connect with the Creature include this movie’s Elizabeth, perhaps the most distinctly original version of the character to date. Elizabeth enters the story via her relations with other men and earns her first scene when she catches Victor’s attention. Yet she proves that she’s so much more than an extension of anyone else, whether she’s rejecting the ideals of either Frankenstein brother or studying the Creature. Goth finds a new application for the uncanny screen presence she brought to Pearl or Infinity Pool, establishing through facial expressions and posture that Elizebeth does not belong in polite society.

Wonderful as Elordi and Goth are, Isaac’s take on the mad doctor is more difficult, and rightfully so. Despite being roundly criticized for his English accent in the Marvel series Moon Knight, Isaac goes posh for Frankenstein, his clipped delivery highlighting the mannered performance. Yet he makes Victor so manic, so driven only by his passions that the accent no longer feels like the bad reproduction of real speech and more like an idiosyncratic language spoken by this one genius. Isaac takes control of the screen during an early scene—in which an inquisition into Victor’s method becomes a platform for him to challenge God—and he never lets go.

The passion that Isaac, Goth, and Elordi give their characters doesn’t quite overcome the movie’s overall messiness, however. Del Toro earns most of his film’s 150-minute running time, and yet the final 20 minutes still feel rushed. It’s not just that the final confrontation between the Creature and his creator lacks urgency; its that del Toro suddenly scrambles to say something about the nature of war and forgiveness and regret, suddenly shoving themes into the film that seemed unimportant earlier. For such a thundering, emotional film, Frankenstein ends with a disappointing whimper.

One gets the sense that the movie’s themes dissipate because del Toro doesn’t really care about them. However, no one can charge him with being lax with his visuals. Like all of del Toro’s movies, Frankenstein looks incredible, taking full advantage of the Gothic setting to create cavernous sets and to clothe Goth in luscious dresses. Cinematographer Dan Laustsen and Tamara Deverell give the film a world as overheated as its characters, most notably with the converted water station that becomes Victor’s laboratory, complete with a yawning hole in the center.

This Frankenstein looks like no other version of Shelley’s story, and it feels like no other version. It’s not necessarily the best movie about a man who challenged the Almighty and paid the price for meddling in God’s domain. But it is the only version that could come from Guillermo del Toro’s wonderful genius.

Frankenstein streams on Netflix on Nov. 7, 2025.