. GODS AND MONSTERS
A film review by Christopher Null
Copyright 1998 Christopher Null
It will probably be honored as a triumph of filmmaking (and indeed has already one the National Board of Review's Best Picture award), but while GODS AND MONSTERS is a good film, it's really more of a curiosity than a legitimate masterpiece.
The adaptation of a fictionalized account of the final days of director Frank Whale (best known for directing the first two FRANKENSTEIN movies), director Condon's story is really a simple one, about Whale's infatuation with his gardner Clay (Fraser). That Whale is a not-so-in-the-closet homosexual is pretty clear up front, but for some reason, Clay can't figure that out.
What follows is a series of encounters between the two, the degeneration of Whale's mind thanks to a stroke, and, most curiously, one dream/fantasy sequence after another, wherein Whale relives his childhood, World War I, and his years in Hollywood.
The dream sequence, long known as the biggest crutch a screenwriter can use, works. At least part-way. Because Whale's mind is going south, we are asked to indulge his fantasies as near-reality for him. Like I say, this works, but only up to a point. After two hours, the device has grown stale and predictable.
Still, GODS is a truly good film with a great cast (McKellan and especially Redgrave, playing Whale's maid, both deserve serious praise), and what must have been a tricky adaptation of the novel on which it was based is also a feat unto itself.
RATING: ****
|------------------------------|
\ ***** Perfection \
\ **** Good, memorable film \
\ *** Average, hits and misses \
\ ** Sub-par on many levels \
\ * Unquestionably awful \
|------------------------------|
MPAA Rating: R
Director: Bill Condon Producer: Paul Colichman, Gregg Fienberg, Mark R. Harris Writer: Bill Condon Starring: Ian McKellan, Brendan Fraser, Lynn Redgrave
http://www.godsandmonsters.net
-Christopher Null / null@sirius.com / Writer-Producer / http://www.filmcritic.com
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews