I, Frankenstein

Plot

In 1795, Doctor Victor Frankenstein creates a monster by putting together parts of corpses and reanimating them. Horrified by his creation, Frankenstein tries to destroy it, but the monster survives and murders his wife Elizabeth. Frankenstein chases it to the Arctic but succumbs to the cold weather. When the monster returns home to bury Frankenstein, it is attacked by demons, but is then rescued by two gargoyles, Ophir and Keziah. They bring it to a cathedral, where the monster meets the gargoyle queen Leonore and her second-in-command, Gideon. Leonore explains that they were created by the Archangel Michael to battle demons on Earth and protect humanity. She names the creature "Adam" and invites him to join them, but he declines and departs. He is given baton-like weapons to defend himself, as more demons will come after him. The weapons allow him to "descend" demons (destroying their bodies and trapping their souls in Hell) as they have the symbol of the Gargoyle Order carved on them.

For the next 200 years, Adam lives apart from society, killing any demon that pursues him and hiding from them. Deciding to rejoin society in the modern day, Adam looks for and confronts a group of demons. During the fight, a police officer is killed. This causes Adam to be summoned by the gargoyles once more, and they decide to imprison him as punishment. A demon, Helek, who survived Adam's attack, reports to his leader, the demon prince Naberius, that Adam is alive. Naberius has disguised himself as billionaire businessman Charles Wessex and employs scientists Terra Wade and Carl Avery to conduct experiments to reanimate corpses. He sends a group of demons led by his most formidable warrior, Zuriel, to attack the gargoyles' cathedral and capture Adam so he can unlock the secret to resurrecting the dead.

In the attack, many demons are slain and 16 gargoyles, including Ophir and Keziah, are "ascended" (returned to and trapped in Heaven), but Zuriel sneaks in and captures Leonore and takes her to an abandoned theater. Adam interrogates a demon, who tells him they lured the gargoyles out to capture Leonore so they can force the gargoyles to trade Adam for her. Gideon is instructed to trade Adam to them; however, Adam escapes after the attack. Without Adam, Gideon offers to trade Frankenstein's journal for Leonore, which was found on the doctor's body the night they found him. Gideon gives Zuriel the journal at the theater, and Leonore is spared. Adam follows Zuriel to the Wessex Institute, where he discovers thousands of corpses underground and learns that Naberius plans to recreate Frankenstein's experiment by reanimating the corpses and using them as hosts for the descended demons so he can rebuild his armies and destroy humanity. Adam retrieves the journal from Terra and escapes the demons. He later tracks down Terra and asks for her help. The two are attacked by Zuriel, where Adam fights and manages to descend him.

Cast

Aaron Eckhart as Adam Frankenstein, a superhuman creature created by Dr. Frankenstein

Bill Nighy as Naberius, a demon prince who poses as Charles Wessex, head of the scientific Wessex Institute

Yvonne Strahovski as Dr. Terra Wade, a world-renowned electrophysiologist employed by Naberius to research reanimation of dead matter

Miranda Otto as Leonore, the gargoyle queen

Jai Courtney as Gideon, leader of the gargoyle army

Socratis Otto as Zuriel, Naberius' most formidable warrior

Kevin Grevioux as Dekar, a high-ranking demon who serves as the head of security at the Wessex Institute

Caitlin Stasey as Keziah, a gargoyle

Mahesh Jadu as Ophir, a gargoyle

Nicholas Bell as Carl Avery

Steve Mouzakis as Helek

Deniz Akdeniz as Barachel

Aden Young as Dr. Frankenstein

Production

Kevin Grevioux of Underworld sold the original screenplay to Lakeshore Entertainment in 2010. It is based on his Darkstorm Studios digital graphic novel of the same name. Lakeshore, an independent Los Angeles production company which also produced the Underworld films, brought Stuart Beattie on board to re-write and direct in early 2011. In November 2011, it was confirmed that filming would take place in Melbourne and that Australia's Hopscotch Features would co-produce the film with Lakeshore. The movie's visual effects budget was $6 million.

It was announced on October 7, 2011, that Aaron Eckhart would play the lead role. Eckhart described his character thus: "Frankenstein is an intelligent, evolved man, and that’s how he is portrayed in this movie, for sure." In November 2011, Yvonne Strahovski was cast as the female lead, a scientist working to reanimate the dead, while Miranda Otto was cast as the queen of the gargoyles. Bill Nighy plays the film's villain, whom he described as a "Nasty piece of work; one of the angels descended with Satan." Eckhart and Otto trained for three months with martial arts experts Ron Balicki and Diana Lee Inosanto in the Filipino martial art of Kali for their fight scenes.

Principal photography began on February 27, 2012, based at Docklands Studios Melbourne. Filming occurred in Victoria, Australia over a period of ten weeks, with multiple scenes being filmed at Ormond College. The film created over 500 jobs for cast and crew.

Release

The North American release was originally set for February 22, 2013, and later moved to September 13, 2013. In April 2013 the release date was pushed back again, and saw its world premiere in Buenos Aires on January 20, 2014, after which it was released in 23 countries between January 22 and January 24. It was released in a further nine countries between January 29 and January 31. In February 2013, it was announced the film would be released in 3D.

Home media

I, Frankenstein was released on DVD and Blu-ray on May 13, 2014.

Reception

Critical response

On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 5% of 104 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 3.4/10. The website's consensus reads: "Loud, incoherent, and dramatically listless, I, Frankenstein is a remarkably dull fantasy adventure that fails to generate much excitement or interest in its characters." Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 30 out of 100, based on 20 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable" reviews.

Mike McCahill of The Guardian gave the film two stars, calling it a "barely functioning multiplex-filler". James Mottram at Total Film also gave it two stars, calling it a "knuckle-headed fantasy".

Box office

In the United States and Canada, the film was released in a total of 2,763 theaters of which 3D and IMAX comprised 95% of the total theaters. It earned $8.6 million in its opening weekend, which was below expectations. About 65% of the grosses came from 3D showings. It had a successful opening in Russia with $6.3 million from 1,846 screens.

I, Frankenstein grossed $19.1 million in the United States and Canada, and $57.7 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $76.8 million, against a production budget of $65 million.

Potential sequels and Underworld crossover

Much doubt has been cast over a sequel due to the film's lackluster box office performance, though Kevin Grevioux, creator of the graphic novel and the Underworld film series, had earlier expressed interest in making more I, Frankenstein films along with an Underworld crossover film. He stated in a pre-release interview that, in an early draft of his screenplay, Kate Beckinsale would have made a post-credits cameo appearance as Selene and that there would have been Underworld Easter eggs, but none of this was used.