Frankenstein (2025, R)

Guillermo del Toro has given us all kinds of incredible work over the years—like so many, my introduction to him was with Pan’s Labyrinth, and I love nearly everything I’ve seen of his. But I don’t think it’d be a stretch to say that this is the film his career has been leading towards.

After the traumatic death of his mother, Victor Frankenstein devotes his life to the obsessive study of conquering death. Universities and scientific institutions decry his work as blasphemous, but Victor is undeterred. When he finally succeeds in animating a body, he’s at first amazed but later fearful and disgusted of his Creature. As Victor prepares to wash his hands of his “failed” experiment, only his brother’s fiancee Elizabeth truly empathizes with the Creature and endeavors to understand him.

It’s been a while since I read the novel, so I’m not sure if some of the beats I don’t remember come from the book or del Toro’s vision for the story. But this is a bold exploration of Frankenstein, equal parts visually arresting, coldly brutal, and lyrically insightful. It’s hardly the first adaptation to ask, “Who is the real monster?”, but it asks the question beautifully. I like the framing device by which the story is told largely in flashbacks, and I like how much time is taken to establish the foundations of the story, both in setting up who Victor is/what shapes him and in depicting the earliest period of the Creature’s life.

I love the idea that, in “conquering death,” Victor has actually condemned the Creature. “I felt lonelier than ever,” the Creature says, “because for every man, there was but one remedy to all pain: death, a gift you too had denied me.” The Creature feels all the pain the world has to offer, over and over, but he heals from every fatal blow. Again, while it’s not the first film to explore the tragedy of immortality, I love how it’s done here.

I also really like what the film does with Elizabeth: the character herself, as well as her relationships with the men in her life. By the time she meets the Creature, she’s been established well enough that her reaction makes perfect sense. This leads to some excellent scenes—with the Creature, obviously, but also with Victor as she tries to get him to reckon with the responsibility his breakthrough has given birth to.

This being a del Toro film, it’s no surprise that the Creature is beautiful, sympathetic, and tragic. So much care and love has clearly been poured into this character. His aesthetic is striking, and Jacob Elordi’s performance is wonderfully nuanced, speaking volumes with his physicality and facial expressions. His counterweight is Oscar Isaac’s Victor, who is brilliant, passionate, and egotistical. Despite his motivations being rooted in his mother’s death, his desire to conquer death is less about preserving life and more about fashioning himself into a new Prometheus. He’s ecstatic and fascinated when he succeeds in creating life, but he doesn’t take time to reckon with the implications of that. And standing between the maker and the so-called monster is Elizabeth, played by Mia Goth. While the Creature is feared and reviled for his appearance, struggling against the slings and arrows of a world that doesn’t want him, Elizabeth has always been seen for her beauty and not her intelligence or integrity, struggling to fit into a world that wants to slot her into a predetermined rightful place.

Aside from the three leads, who are all fantastic in their roles, the film is populated with fine actors turning in good work. We have Christophe Waltz as Elizabeth’s uncle/Victor’s benefactor, Charles Dance doing what he does as Victor’s cruelly demanding father, and David Bradley as the blind man who befriends the Creature. The film also features appearances from Lars Mikkelsen, Ralph Ineson, and Burn Gorman.

Warnings

Strong violence/gore (against both humans and animals,) strong thematic elements, language, brief nudity, drinking/smoking, and nondisabled actors playing disabled characters.

The Sandman (2022-Present)

*Premise spoilers.*

The Sandman is one of those series where the word “unadaptable” gets thrown around a lot. It feels too big, too fantastical, too dark, too weird, and too meandering to ever be done justice. As someone who isn’t a major fan of the comic series but has been drawn into every volume I’ve read of it, I went into the new Netflix series curious and cautiously hopeful. And honestly? I think they’re nailing it.

In 1916, an aristocrat/sorcerer named Roderick Burgess tries to capture Death and ends up catching someone else instead: her younger brother Dream. When Dream finally escapes after more than a century of imprisonment, he discovers that both his realm and the Waking World have suffered in his absence. He sets out to recover his stolen tools, repair the Dreaming, and retrieve several nightmares who’ve gone missing.

This is a sprawling story, and not just in the Game of Thrones, “dozens of characters, numerous locales” sense. The Sandman is sprawling in its very narrative. It involves members of the immortal family known as the Endless, a trip to Hell, an escaped murderer preying on a sleepy diner, a man who refuses to die, and a young woman who can walk through the dreams of everyone at her bed and breakfast. A bonus double episode released after the main season goes off into even wilder tangents involving cat prophets and enslaved Muses. There’s a little of everything here and hints of more to come.

Yet somehow, the series makes it all feel cohesive. As the story shifts from Dream’s search for his tools into the plotline involving the Vortex, we pass from one narrative to the other through the lovely coda of “The Sound of Her Wings,” which itself effortlessly combines stories from two different issues of the comic. The themes and the imagery weave it all together, with a throughline of Dream’s imprisonment and how he’s changing since he escaped. It’s an impressive feat, and the show pulls it off well.

The visuals are spectacular. Half dreadful, half stunning, the images saturate the screen and bring us fully into these worlds. Special shoutout to every member of the Endless that we meet—they all look so good—and the CGI on the transformation of Fiddler’s Green.

Fine acting all around. Again, the Endless need particular kudos. At the center of the series, Tom Sturridge is the embodiment of Dream. I love how cold and remote he feels, and Sturridge does a nice job bringing in these subtle notes of empathy and consideration as his experiences change him for the better. Kirby Howell-Baptiste (Simone from The Good Place!) is exquisite as Dream, and Mason Alexander Park makes for a sumptuous Desire. We only get a glimpse of Donna Preston as Despair, but it’s enough that I want to see more of her.

Other notable cast members: I was dubious of Boyd Holbrook on Narcos, but he’s excellent as the nightmare known as the Corinthian, equal parts menacing and seductive. David Thewlis is great as John Dee, and Gwendoline Christie makes for an intriguing Lucifer. Kyo Ra is a newcomer, but she’s very engaging as Rose Walker. I also love the warmth and specificity of Stephen Fry’s performance as Gilbert. Additionally, the show features strong appearances from Jenna Coleman, Ferdinand Kingsley, and Arthur Darvill.

Warnings

Violence, disturbing imagery, sexual content, language, drinking/smoking, and strong thematic elements (including child abuse.)

The Sandman, Vol. 8: Worlds’ End (1993)

A fairly Endless-light volume after the events of Brief Lives, but still a good one, offering up a variety of fanciful tales and some intriguing ideas. Even though it’s taking me a while to get through The Sandman – I find that I enjoy it best when I give it some space to breathe between volumes – it’s still a worthwhile journey featuring some really striking storytelling.

Brant and Charlene are driving overnight to Chicago when their car gets into an accident in the middle of a reality storm. The only refuge to be found is at the Worlds’ End inn, where an assortment of creatures from different worlds and realms tell stories as they wait for the storm to pass.

This is a good setup. I enjoy the concept of a reality storm, both just the basic idea of it and the notion that it’s caused when something so monumental happens at a cosmic level that the ends of reality start coming undone. I also like the idea of the inn as this insubstantial way station in the eye of the storm, a place to ride it out safely but a place that only really exists in these moments of crisis. And “a bunch of disparate individuals sit around and tell stories” is a frequent winner of a premise, and Neil Gaiman makes the most out of this one.

The stories are varied and largely unconnected, though there are a few brief glimpses of members of the Endless here and there, and one character identifies a common stylistic thread throughout the different tales toward the end of the volume. They’re full of Gaiman’s characteristic macabre, fantastical vision, plucked out of a no-place between anecdote, fairytale, and myth. I also enjoy the conceit of having each tale drawn by a different artist, while the connective tissue of the World’s End scenes all have a single style.

Some of the stories are more intriguing than others, but there’s something to enjoy in all of them. I particularly like “A Tale of Two Cities,” the story of a man who gets caught in the dream of the city where he lives, and “The Golden Boy,” about a young political idealist who’s offered the chance to make a deal with a devil in exchange for power. I also really enjoy the concept of the necropolis in the story “Cerements,” a society of ghouls whose livelihoods (in a manner of speaking) are derived from diverse ceremonies of the dead.

As interesting as this volume is, it is admittedly a bit of a letdown after Brief Lives. When I reviewed that volume, I mentioned that I hoped to see some continuation on the story presented there, even though I know that’s not really The Sandman’s way. And we do get a few hints, but it’s only enough to tantalize, not enough to really explore any of the revelations made in Brief Lives. Part of me hopes for more in the coming volumes, but it’s hard to say if there’s any likelihood of that happening at this point.