In the
dark rainy city of god-knows-where Frankenstein’s monster, played by Aaron
Eckhart, stumbles into a holy war between undercover demons and gargoyles sent
to protect earth by the archangel Gabriel.
The gargoyles live in and protect a massive cathedral in the center of
the unnamed city, where they decide, against their better judgment, not to kill
Eckhart’s superfluous character—named Adam by the gargoyle queen—even though
they know that he murdered his creator and that he doesn’t have a soul. You
see, the demons need to build an army of animated corpses like Adam because in
this universe they can only possess soulless bodies. Though apparently they can’t just possess a
regular buried corpse because that would be too simple and this movie never
passes on an opportunity to toss a narrative hurdle in its path.
Years
into the future, in what I guess is supposed to be modern times, Niberious the
prince of demons, played by Bill Nighy, is working to recreate Dr.
Frankenstein’s results in a lab, ran by two scientists who are unaware of his
evil conspiracy. The lead physicist
Terra (Yvonne Strahofsky) gets wind of her employer’s actions after she encounters
Adam when he breaks into her lab to retrieve his master’s 19th
century journal. Adam must then choose
between protecting himself and joining the gargoyles in their battle against
the possible threat of an army of demon possessed Franken-zombies.
Overwrought
and underwhelming this movie tries to stuff in every mistake made by every
action-horror fantasy from the last 15 years. It attempts to balance myth and
legend against genre tradition and bizarre Christian metaphors, resulting in a
head spinning slosh of clanging production notes. And oh my god is this movie
is stupid. I mean it’s bad… Like, really bad. It’s bad in a way I didn’t know
movies could still be. But is it so bad it’s good? Not quite, though not for
any lack of trying.
Practically every single thing that this
movie wants to do it can’t seem to do at all. The performances all around are
as stiff as a log and comprised of nothing but a series of slow-motion poses,
but I can hardly the blame the actors when their characters speak in nothing
but clunky exposition. The stylized violence, which should be fun in theory, is
undercut by the fact that the angels/gargoyles are beamed up to heaven as soon
as they are killed, while the demons explode into a badly rendered ball of CGI fire,
sending them back to hell; a cheesy conceit that will make you nostalgic for
the dated effects in “Ghost”.
There’s
even an attempt to create a pseudo-romance between Adam and Terra the
electro-physiologist. Of course when Eckhart bares his toned body, as he
removes his war-tattered hoodie, we are immediately reminded that his character
is a cadaver, patched together by other peoples dead flesh—hardly a sexy
moment.
Len
Wiseman’s “Underworld” series, as stupid as most of it is, was occasionally
watchable in all its pleather-clad monster brooding, but this mash-up
mythology, directed by Stuart Bettie, only diminishes the good-will towards its
antecedents. Designed to look like an Evanescence music video or a PS2
video-game cut scene, whatever campy joy one might want to find between the
cracks of this schlocky mess is buried miles under a heap of dull
self-seriousness.
Grade: F
Originally published in the Idaho State Journal/Feb-2014
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