Mary Shelley's Frankenstein 4K Blu-ray Review

The intervening years have been kind to the film that Screenrant.com, and many others subsequently, dubbed Branagh’s ‘folly’.

Since its release in 1994, we’ve had twenty-two further films either about or featuring Mary Shelley’s famous creation – some not so good (I, Frankenstein), some very good indeed (Bernard Rose’s 2015 heart-breaking adaptation) – but almost all have furthered the notion which Branagh’s film was the first to bring to the mainstream nearly thirty years ago: that of the grandiose tragedy of both the creature and its creator.

While Universal’s and Hammer’s wonderful adaptations touched on this, thanks mostly to some touching portrayals from Boris Karloff and Christopher Lee, they all portrayed one or the other as the sociopathic barbarian capable of acts of brutal inhumanity. And while Branagh’s adaptation doesn’t shy away from these more salacious elements, its ambitious and yet not altogether wholly successful melding of gothic tragedy, period romance and expressionistic melodrama leans into the doomed love at the heart of the novel – the love man has for science and the never-ending advancement of knowledge, the love man has for his soul mate and the lengths he will go to for them, and finally, the love man has for ultimately his fellow man: a love of belonging, possibly based more on the fear of being alone… but a love for belonging nonetheless.

And in Branagh’s case, possibly the love of himself…

Branagh was coming off the back of his first four critically lauded and commercially successful features as director. He had the world at his feet and when Francis Ford Coppola came calling to direct this after deciding to step aside from a partner piece to his wildly successful and gonzo Bram Stoker adaptation from several years before, it was difficult to say no. Yet very public fall outs with both Coppola and screenwriter Frank Darabont highlight that this was very much Branagh’s film. For both the good and the bad that it entailed.

Adhering much closer to the novel than any other adaptation, the film opens in the late 18^th century on an Arctic expedition helmed by Aidan Quinn. After becoming stuck in the ice and his crew on the verge of mutiny, the obsessed helmer is happened upon by Victor Frankenstein (Branagh) who regales the captain with his tale of science and humanity run amok – of his love for his adoptive sister (Helena Bonham Carter), of his mother who died in childbirth, of his vow to never have another human lose someone they love and of his creation of life (Robert De Niro) who he then abandons and whom wreaks revenge on his creator for his unwanted birth and his enforced isolation.

The first act of Frankenstein’s tale is pure period drama – sumptuous costumes, cavernous stately homes, forbidden love and familial loss. We see the birth of the tortured scientist from idealistic young student and, as we follow him to Ingolstadt as he begins his university studies, it’s bordering on a prestige BBC/Merchant Ivory production. Guest stars are introduced at an alarming rate – Ian Holm and Cherie Lunghi as Frankenstein’s parents, Tom Hulce as the loyal and somewhat moral voiced best friend/Igor and John Cleese and his terrifying overbite in one of his rare but exceedingly good serious roles as Frankenstein’s mentor. Some lovely, clever narrative depth adds to the set up – the city is in the grip of a plague, the ‘materials’ used in the creation of life coming from an anti-vaxxer is an amusingly wry coincidence of today – but the film bursts into life with the much vaunted and anticipated birthing scene.

Gone are the hokey castle and lightning rods, in their place boiling amniotic fluid, giant brass birthing pods and hundreds of electric eels. And of course, Branagh’s nipples. Yes, the scene has passed into infamy thanks to Sir Ken performing the entire scene topless, toned midriff on full show, draped luxuriously by his magnificent mullet. Ending with unintentional hilarity as Branagh and his creation wrestle for seemingly eons in the gloopy liquid, continually falling over each other in some strange precursor to Statham’s finest oil-drenched moment in the first Transporter film, it's here where the legend of Branagh’s egotistical folly and of the film’s high camp reputation are ironically birthed.

And yet for the remainder of the film, its two narrative strands – the pitiful creature’s realisation of its own existence thanks to time spent with a blind hermit (Richard Briers) and his family; and Branagh’s wrestling with his own guilt at what he had done – each take their own tonal direction. De Niro injects real pathos into the hulking creature, here given the ability to talk, read and think and it's here where the tragedy of Shelley’s creation shines brightest. But when we cut back to Branagh trying to live his life, at first not knowing of the survival of the creature and then with the realisation of the impact of his acts, it's with a sense of a flawed hero, not the demented antagonist he is so often painted as.

Even when the film takes a turn into the gloriously deranged with some truly brutal sequences in its third act, it’s always firmly anchoring both characters in these overarching tracks. Both characters echo the tragedy of the other, unwitting victims of circumstance that was never planned or asked for by either. And it's here where the film truly succeeds. Crashing its Hammer-esque high camp and flamboyant grotesquery firmly into doomed melodramatic romance and never shying away from the sad fate of the characters means it feels much more rounded a piece, more in line with the dense textures of the original literature than any film that had gone before.

While Branagh’s eye for the epic mostly worked – expressionistic, almost theatrical sweeping sets, set up some truly stunning visuals (the fiery escape of one of his creations in the film’s final act is hauntingly beautiful), backed by a wonderfully evocative and lush orchestral score by Patrick Doyle – there’s no escaping a sense of his ego too. The doomed love between him and Bonham-Carter, which spilled over into real life and sealed the end of his marriage to Emma Thompson at the time, feels all about ‘him’ rather than ‘them’ and those shirtless scenes still raise more titters than excited or enthralled gasps.

But as a companion piece to FFC's Bram Stoker’s Dracula (spot the theme here….), it works a treat. Quintessentially British in its feel – if Dracula felt like a gaudy update of the AIP/Corman/Poe cycle of literary horror adaptations, this felt like it went down the Hammer route but in the exact same way – it's every bit as overblown, as luridly grandiose and as flamboyantly ludicrous as it always was. And for that, we should be eternally thankful.

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein was shot on 35mm film using Panavision Panaflex cameras and Arriflex lenses. A brand new 4K restoration from the original camera negative has been produced by Sony Pictures for this release that forms the basis of a new 4K digital intermediate (DI) which finds its way onto this new 4K UHD Blu-ray release from Arrow. The disc presents a native 3840 x 2160p resolution image with the original aspect ratio of 1.85:1 faithfully preserved using a 10-bit video depth, both High Dynamic Range flavours (HDR10 and Dolby Vision) and encoded using the HEVC (H.265) codec.

We reviewed this Region free UK Ultra HD Blu-ray release on a JVC-DLA N5 Ultra HD 4K projector (for main HDR10 viewing), a Philips 50PUS6754/12 Ultra HD 4K TV (for a DV/HDR10 comparison) and a Panasonic DP-UB9000 Dolby Vision/HDR10 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray player (for HDR10 viewing) and a Sony UBPX700 Dolby Vision/HDR10 Ultra HD Blu-ray player (for DV/HDR10 comparisons).

Things don’t start well – the opening Arctic scenes look very soft and a little grubby. Fine detail is noticeably absent from faces, clothing textures and the icy hair of all the ship’s crew. However, upon beginning Frankenstein’s tale, the visuals slowly seep into life.

Again, not immediately. Grain is quite thick and very noticeable and Branagh’s desire to shoot these early scenes with some sort of woozy, almost romantic filter and lighting setup means we don’t immediately see what’s going on in the image. But slowly, the picture starts to reveal itself: intricate detail is suddenly on show in the wonderful costumes, on the faces of the film’s characters and in the texture of the sets around them. Granted it's behind that grain layer, but it’s there. Again, it's inconsistent – all the scenes in the Alps mirror the softness of the opening shots, thanks in part to the optical work needed to convey these sweeping vistas – but as we move into the laboratory sets and beyond, the film again picks its detail levels up again.

Coupled with a lovely warm colour palette, driven by those primary reds and oranges of the candlelight and the brass equipment, the film settles down into a rather nicely textured image. Comparison to the previous 2009 Sony 1080p release from the US (ported over to the UK in 2015) reveals even more improvements in the image – at 30 mins as Bonham-Carter is reading a letter in a garden, on the previous disc, her dress is a mess of blotchy whites and creams, whereas on this new 4K picture, it shows a subtle pattern and texture separating the two sets of colours; at 54 mins, a close up of Branagh’s sleeping face shows much darker shadows and reveals the light freckles on his cheeks, whereas the Sony disc loses the colour depth and the detail of these faint marks; finally at the 70 min mark as De Niro sits with the hermit, on the Sony disc, his face is all one flat shade of pale skin, while the Arrow disc accents the shade and shadow of his face to give a much greater impression of dimensionality to the overall picture, as well as adding to the lines and wrinkles and scars of the face, upping the perception of detail considerably.

HDR no doubt helps here, but again, even when called upon by the script – the burning of the hermit’s cottage for example – it never feels overt. Some may bemoan the lack of insane darks and burning lights, but here it feels like it's deployed to give depth and dimensionality to the image rather than to wow those who enjoy wearing sunglasses for their viewing.

It almost goes without saying now, but print damage is completely absent and the film‘s overall stability in terms of image wobble/judder is exemplary. Bit rates fluctuate significantly, with softer scenes (such as when Branagh first enters his laboratory space) utilising rates of between 35 and 45mpbs, while the sharper scenes up the rates massively to on average 75mbps, whilst nudging highs of over 90mbps at certain points, all hinting at some solid compression work of actually squeezing the image onto the disc. In fact, the only slight blemish in the image was a handful of instances where the grain looked to have that tell-tale noise trademark of dark splotches in amongst all that lovely natural filmic texture. Yet these were fleeting and never got in the way of my viewing enjoyment.

Overall, for a film that has a fairly flat and dare I say it, almost ‘drab’ visual motif, this new 4K disc represents a deceptive upgrade but a fairly significant one over the previous Sony 1080p disc. Arrow didn’t send its new 1080p to act as a comparison so I’m unable to compare how both discs treat this new restoration. But for those who choose this new 4K version, I’m sure you’ll be really pleased with this very worthwhile upgrade.

Note: moving away from the projector to the Philips to compare HDR10 and Dolby Vision layers, we get the expected slight boost in colour saturation in the DV layer and little else different to note, but here, it looks slightly odd, almost causing colours to be too hot, especially skin tones. It's not a significant variance and certainly not one to warrant any concern over, but for me the HDR10 layer on the projector gave a much more natural sense of colours than the DV layer did on the LCD… but obviously equipment plays a significant role as always.

The 4K disc has a limited number of audio and soundtrack options included: lossless original stereo and remixed 5.1 English language options are the only soundtracks available, while subtitles are again limited to English (traditional and SDH) only.

We reviewed the Region free UK Ultra HD Blu-ray release of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein on a Denon AVR-X4300H and a 7.2.4 array of Kef speakers (including the Q range and ci in-walls/in-ceilings).

Continuing Branagh’s fairly restrained visuals, both audio tracks here are not the kind to show off your surround system. Or even your two-channel one. Immediately noticeable is the lower volume levels both tracks have – both needed to have an extra 5-6db added to normal listening volumes to get the sound anywhere near usual levels.

Starting with the original stereo track, it's nicely chunky in its midrange but doesn’t really come alive with any real sense of dynamic range. Patrick Doyle’s score sounds lush but not really energetic, the track not really exciting the senses in way the best soundtracks do. It’s far too mannered, polite almost, even though everything sounds as it should. Dialogue is prioritised nicely and always anchored to the centre channel, with the mix of vocals, music and effects always properly balanced. Everything sounds clean, it’s just… there’s nothing to really get excited about by its overall presentation.

Switching to the lossless 5.1 track, expectations for something with a little more ‘oomph’ were set by the opening Arctic storm, with a swirling thunderstorm pouring out of the speakers. But sadly after this, I can’t remember a single instance in which the surrounds were engaged again, the entire track firmly fixed to the front speaker array. Again, it loses a little of that midrange thickness, almost as if the old school graphic equaliser had been set to the classic ‘V’ shape. But it retains the nice balance and mild manners of its stereo sibling and while it wasn’t the preferred track – the original stereo just shades it for overall immediacy thanks to its greater presence in that midrange – it's still an ok listen.

Both tracks are the very definition of ‘ok’ but hardly anything to get too excited about.

Given the previous Sony disc had no extras outside of a clutch of irrelevant trailers, the extras package here was a solid draw and includes:

• A new audio commentary by film historians Michael Brooke and Johnny Mains;
• Mary Shelley and the creation of a Monster – a 30 min featurette on the origins and evolution of the Frankenstein story, with noted academics Jonathan Rigby, Stephen Volk and David Pirie;
• Dissecting Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein – a 15 min look at the similarities and differences between Branagh’s film and the source novel with Rigby, Volk and Pirie;
• Frankenstein (1910) – the full 12 min silent and first adaptation of the novel (restored in 2K);
• Three new interviews with key crew (composer, costume designer and make-up designer) – approx. 45 mins in total;
• Original trailers.

While what is here is mostly fascinating – the original silent short is a fantastic addition, while Rigby Volk and Pirie offer lovely insight and context into the film – the lack of any involvement from Branagh, Darabont or any of the key cast and main creatives robs the package of a sense of completeness. The new interviews with the three crew members are ok, but there’s very little on the making of itself and the film’s very public hardships and it leaves the entire disc with a sense that something is most definitely missing from its supplementals, especially for Arrow.

Note that the disc was sent with no packaging so the included booklet and new artwork weren’t seen. Fans of slips should also take note that all images of the set seem to indicate that there isn’t one here, however, who knows when release day rolls round.

Mary Shelley's Frankenstein 4K Blu-ray Review

The damning commentary that this is nothing more than a ‘bloated vanity project’ is tough to argue against. Especially when so many of its high-profile creators have come out in subsequent years against the film. Yet its very odd brand of high melodrama, period romance and heavily Hammer influenced sense of the gore-drenched gothic produces an intoxicating mix of a film that certainly gives its fans everything they could possibly want.

As a companion piece to Coppola’s own Dracula, it's an equally gonzo film that is fit to share the description I’ve previously given to FFCs film of ‘gloriously loopy’.

... this can be wholeheartedly recommended for fans of the film

This new package from Arrow offers a deceptive but obvious visual upgrade over the previous release, while its extras package offers up some fascinating contextual and academic supplementals but fails to provide anything substantial on the making of the film itself. And therefore given its relatively low price point for a boutique label UHD release, this can be wholeheartedly recommended for fans of the film. Or of Branagh’s chest.

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is released by Arrow in the UK on 4K UHD, 4K UHD Exclusive Steelbook (from Zavvi) and regular Blu-ray on the 28^th March.