Kenneth Branagh directed and stars in this po-faced gothic tosh as a mittel-European medical student who strips down to reveal unfeasibly well-toned abs as he leaps around his lab, marinading his monster (Robert De Niro with skin no worse than your average 18th-century smallpox patient) in a giant fish kettle. Luckily, he also steps up to bat when the country is threatened by a Godzilla wannabe called Baragon. One atomic bomb and many years of radiation later, it grows into a giant, feral boy-kaiju who can’t help destroying things. The Nazis present the heart of Frankenstein’s monster to Japan, where it ends up being studied by scientists in … Hiroshima. If you can put up with the tired adages (“It’s better to be a good nobody than an evil somebody”), there is some lovely Louis Prima on the soundtrack. One Igor (John Cusack), smarter than his master, creates a female monster for an evil science fair. Photograph: Momentum Pictures/AllstarĪll evil scientists have hunchbacked assistants called Igor in this sub-Tim Burton animation full of Frankenstein references.
