I rarely write online reviews, but after reading most of the comments here my fingers couldn't type fast enough. Clearly, the majority of reviewers here saw a different film than the one I did. A masterpiece? Artful? Brilliant? Either that, or they just have poor taste in films. I still have no interest in really reviewing this film, but let me clear up a few erroneous statements from previous reviews: <br /><br />1) Please don't trash James Whale's 1931 film unless you've actually SEEN it — all of it, because it's a far superior film to this, bolts and all. Whale may have changed the story quite a bit, but he captured the spirit of the novel and created one of the greatest cinematic icons of all time. (And Boris Karloff played the monster, not Lon Chaney).<br /><br />2) Although this film is truer to the original novel, it is not faithful and makes considerable changes that alter the overall intent of the story. There is no love triangle in the book, Victor Frankenstein is a medical student of about 18-19 years of age (Branagh is well past the sell-by date for that), and he creates the monster entirely by accident. (No drama whatsoever in the book - he wakes up with the creature hovering near his bed. No electricity, no solar panels as in "The True Story", no amniotic fluid as in this film).<br /><br />3) De Niro is laughable as the creature. He's completely out of his element and hopelessly miscast. As for make-up, Karloff is closer to original story (minus the bolts). In the novel the creature has weepy yellow eyes, skin like a cadaver, and is nine feet tall. Karloff's make-up was green because when filmed under proper lighting (on B&W film) green make-up looks deadly pale, almost pure white, not because the monster in that film was supposed to be green. Again, it's B&W folks! <br /><br />This story will always present challenges for a filmmaker because it's not really horrific as a story by our standards, or by the standards of the 1930s for that matter, hence the bolts. It's was a novel of the Romantic Era, and the very premise was frightening in and of itself.<br /><br />The real core of the novel is the on-going philosophical debate between young Victor, and his bastard child - the creature. Yes, it's a novel about creating life and playing God, but underneath that is a novel about both adolescent sexuality — Young Victor, alone in his attic, fooling around with nature — and also the consequences of creating a life and then not taking responsibility for it. Branagh's film is too caught up in hammy acting and nauseating camera moves to ever really get there. Yes, the debates are there, but the soul isn't. It's a vaudeville sideshow masquerading as art. For those with only a passing knowledge of the book, it may seem truer, but Whale's 1931 film is actually much closer to the novel's heart in its depiction of "the other", the outcast, the bastard than this ever comes close to.