"I, Frankenstein" (The Guardian 31/01/14)

I, Frankenstein (12A) 91 mins **

This owes as much to Mary Shelley as last decade’s bargain-bin perennial Van Helsing did to Bram Stoker: it’s one more run around that boringly realised, CGI-reliant, blue-grey netherverse that takes enduring fantasy creations as the basis for barely functioning multiplex-filler. Aaron Eckhart is the newly articulate and hunky Creature, stalking an anonymous latter-day cityscape as a demon hunter; among those delivering their material with unmerited seriousness, Miranda Otto announces herself as – dearie me – “High Queen of the Gargoyle Order”, while Underworld veteran Bill Nighy trousers another cheque as the demon-in-chief. Reasonable effects, but the storytelling’s botched from the title onwards: shouldn’t it be I, Frankenstein’s Monster?

I, Frankenstein is in cinemas nationwide.