“Gargoyles and demons are at war for nothing less than the fate of humanity.” - Frankenstein's Monster
That's an actual line of dialogue. If you're like, “What the hell?," you're in the right mindset for absorbing the 90-minute exercise in bafflement that is “I, Frankenstein.” Thing is, it's a good bafflement. The movie makes basically zero sense, but it's below stupid. It's below boring. Somehow, somehow, the movie is so inept at telling a story, at giving purpose to the title character, that it becomes utterly captivating.
“I, Frankenstein” starts with Frankenstein's monster burying his creator only to be attacked by demons. Although the monster is absurdly strong, fast, resilient and capable of hand-to-hand combat, he is still subdued – until a group of gargoyles flies off its steeple perch and rescues him. Soon, he finds himself in the gargoyle lair, getting exposition straight from the mouth of their angelic leader Leonore (Miranda Otto), who tells him of the aforementioned war. She tries to recruit his services, but Frankenstein don't care 'bout nobody, so he steals two magic Holy Sticks (for demon bashing) and goes nomad for 200 years. When we return to the angels in the present, he learns that the demons have a new plan, a plan that requires him.
The best part of “I, Frankenstein” is just how inconsequential the monster (who later gets the name Adam) is to the entire story. He kind of moves between the gargoyles and the demons with zero consequence. Really, he could just kind of walk out of the movie, and all the conflict would end. He's that essential to the demon plot and that inessential to the gargoyles' eventual god-willed victory over the forces of darkness.
It's just awesome. It's amazing. It's like no movie I've ever seen before. There is literally nothing in the film propelling the plot forward. He could just walk away. Every scene in the film could theoretically be the last scene of the movie. In a way, it's like listening to someone read you a "Choose Your Own Adventure" book from page 1 to page 49, except all the endings are exactly the same so, in frustration, you keep reading one after the other. In “I, Frankenstein,” the story itself, the complete and utter lack of any character work or real conflict, is a brilliant spectacle. In a way, it feels wholly original because it hardly even subscribes to the classic plot structure of the "monster mash-up" genre. Sure, there's a villain, two sides in eternal conflict, a vague love interest, questions of humanity, but, like, none of it matters.
Eckhart as the monster isn't just bland, he's virtually absent from the entire movie. Early on, Leonore looks into Adam's eyes and sees he's worth trusting. Look into Eckhart's eyes. Nothing. But he doesn't suck at doing nothing. Doing nothing is what the script calls for Adam to do. So somehow, he's absolutely perfect in the role.
Bill Nighy hops into the fray as another really dull villain while Jai Courtney and Yvonne Strahovski are also along for the ride. None of them seem to care, none of them need to care.
It's a movie that doesn't care.
If you want mindless action, and I mean truly mindless action, you could do worse than "I, Frankenstein."