Movies > Books: Frankenstein

Mary Shelley’s famous novel Frankenstein was originally published in 1818. It’s become an English literary classic in the 200 years since. Conceptually, it’s phenomenal; the story of a man who dares to become God by creating life out of dead flesh. Unfortunately, for those of us who have actually read the book, we all know how badly executed it is.

Shelley wrote the novel between the ages of 18 and 20. When you read it, you can tell it was written by a teenager. It has no depth, no nuance, clunky prose, it’s idealistic to the point of annoyance, and it smacks of worldly inexperience. It is exactly the kind of book you would expect a teenage girl to write. It doesn’t convey any maturity that an adult writer would naturally have from a lifetime of experience.

LOL BUT BRIK IF IT SUCKED SO BAD IT WOULDNT BE A CLASSIC DUH LOL

Shelley’s book is indeed a “classic” today, but not because she wrote a good book. Shelley got extremely lucky. First, her husband was the world-famous poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, and he certainly had pull within academic and publishing circles. Second, she lived in a time when pretty much anyone who had the wherewithal to write a book (i.e. they were rich) could get it published. It’s not like today when anyone with Microsoft Word can bang out a shitty novel and self-publish it on Amazon. Third, the 1931 film Frankenstein was so incredible, people remember that and not the book on which it was based.

Dumb and Dumber To, The Monster Squad

Dumb and Dumber To

The original Dumb and Dumber is one of my all-time favorite comedies. Don’t judge me, I don’t bash on you for liking whatever crappy movie you think is great. Anyway, the original film is a classic. It’s got just the right amount of stupid antics combined with sight gags and subtle humor (e.g. the salmon of Capistrano) to make it the complete package. It’s endlessly quotable (“I like it a lot”), and even to this day, I pretend like I’m running incredibly fast while I’m in the passenger side of a car.

Dumb and Dumber To is none of those things. Sadly, it’s a completely unnecessary sequel 20 years too late. It makes the typical mistake these kinds of movies make, and that is to rehash the original film. This sequel takes it to the extreme and essentially become a near remake of the first film.

Dimwits Harry and Lloyd embark on a cross-country trek to find Harry’s long-lost daughter so she can give him a kidney. They carry an unopened package with them that is worth millions. They are accompanied by a criminal who they trade barbs with, and accidentally kill him. Once they get to their location, they learn that there is more to their journey than meets the eye, criminals and police get involved, and everything gets sorted out in the end.

But it’s still funny, right? Wrong. Most of the jokes don’t land. The humor is tired and surprisingly mean-spirited. There are barely any gags worth remembering. The only part that I found funny was when Harry, Lloyd, and the criminal were debating the “He Who Smelt It” game rules, and even then it was only mildly funny.

Overall, this was a sad reminder of the state of Hollywood today. They resurrect every old property and spit an ill-advised sequel or remake into the theater. This movie doesn’t deserve to exist.

Verdict: Shitty

The Monster Squad

Back in the 1980s, kid movies were a big thing. A group of plucky youngsters would get involved in strange adventures that were way over their heads, and would ultimately save the day and/or world by the end. The Goonies, in 1985, was perhaps the greatest example of this format. The Monster Squad is one of the poorer examples of this format.

The Monster Squad has a promising premise, but executes it in the most moronic way possible. A group of kids who are obsessed with monster movies form a club so they can revel in their hobby. Meanwhile, all the classic Universal horror villains (Dracula, Frankenstein’s monster, Mummy, Creature from the Black Lagoon, and Wolfman) gang up with a thread-bare plot to take over the world. When the kids find out, they used their combined monster lore to defeat the bad guys.

I’m a fan of whimsical fantasy movies when they are done right. The Monster Squad, however, is done completely wrong. The characters are flat and boring. They have no personalities. They merely exist to shuttle the story along. We feel nothing for them. When the main kid is in danger, I didn’t care in the slightest.

The monsters are equally dull. They do nothing to strike fear into our hearts. They lurch about, hiss at the kids, and are generally impotent to do anything even remotely horrifying. They are easily defeated by the youngsters with shotguns, wooden stakes, and silver bullets.

Obviously, the kids are going to kill the monsters, that’s the whole premise. But it’s done in such a lazy fashion. The requisite fat kid kills the Creature from the Black Lagoon with a shotgun blast to the chest. Gee, how inventive. The requisite tough kid kills vampires with wooden stakes while they lumber toward him without any sense of urgency or danger.

With an underdeveloped plot, one-dimensional characters, and monsters with nothing to do, The Monster Squad fails on every single level. It’s too bad, because it could have been great in the right hands.

Verdict: Shitty