Frankenstein (2025) Review: del Toro’s Greatest Ever Creation!

IIn 1818, Mary Shelley created one of the most notable and famous pieces of literature to ever grace our world. In a time where women writing novels was its own rarity, writing a horror was even more outside the box for a young woman. Frankenstein has become larger than life ever since its publication, spanning a number of novel and film adaptations over more than a century.

Where creative liberty is often taken by many other authors and directors one thing never changes. The story has always captured the idea of feeling like a monster and an outsider in a cruel world that has difficulty accepting people’s differences. With the best intentions to learn and live like other humans, The Monster has always embodied how the world will continue to dismantle and corrupt innocence and purity, even creating evil in the process.

Guillermo del Toro, known for his imaginative style and dark fairy tale atmosphere, is the ideal filmmaking to adapt Frankenstein for a modern age. With obstacles including financing for the film as well as industry strikes, Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein defies already high expectations to deliver an honest and true adaptation that allows his own ideals of hope to flourish.

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In the 19th century, a group of sailors discover an injured man whom they bring onto their ship. The man, Victor, begins telling the story of how he ended up there and why a mysterious monster is after him. In this story, Victor Frankenstein (Oscar Isaac) has always longed to defy his people’s expectations and reality of death. As a scientist with immense aspirations, Victor begins working on an experiment in which he assembles a human with parts from deceased soldiers by linking them together physically and through the lymphatic system to new life into the world.

When his brother William (Felix Kammerer) gets engaged to Elizabeth Harlander (Mia Goth), Elizabeth’s uncle Henrich (Christoph Waltz) decides to finance Victor’s work with “no strings attached,” Victor’s dream becomes reality when his creation comes to life. The Monster (Jacob Elordi) is not everything Victor imagined, leaving him to regret his decision and abandon The Monster one fateful night. Under the assumption that he had rid himself of The Monster, which he later discovers survived his attempted murder, Victor and The Monster’s tales are explored in a way that stays true to Shelley’s original text while leaving much room for the magic that del Toro does best.

​On the surface, Frankenstein is a dazzling spectacle of special effects, cinematography, and production design that takes one’s breath away with every shot. The constrictions and creation of the ice, edge of the world, and gothic sequences mirror the spectacles Guillermo del Toro is known for delivering, as seen in films like Pan’s Labyrinth and Crimson Peak to name a few.

del Toro directs his subjects and locations with such ease and steadiness even in the chaos of violence. Harnessing the essence of a classic piece of literature is a challenge in itself but del Toro does so beautifully by also taking Shelley’s work off the page and into a realm she would have never been able to imagine even as she wrote it. His immense love for the story is beyond evident in his development of the film and the soul he breathes into a heartbreaking tale.

Guillermo del Toro’s iteration of Frankenstein explores the thematic foundation of the novel and allows it to feel heartbreakingly timeless even centuries after its publication. Victor utters an idea in the film in which he explains that he never thought much about what would come next after his creation came to life.

This inability to imagine and conceptualize the actions that are being taken and their long term impacts has been the downfall of man since the beginning of time. In a world today where technology is being built to expand our limits in the name of prestige rather than moral effect, del Toro emphasizes Victor’s failure to step outside of his pride and imagine the effects of forming a living being.

As the film progresses and The Monster is shunned and met with brutality and hatred by many, including his own creator, the concept of whether living eternally in a cruel world or death being the true punishment is examined. Where Frankenstein is heightened to meet the standard of its incredible director is in the hope that is brought to a story typically met with nihilism and sadness. With the realization that he will live eternally without the possibility of death, The Monster is able to see that living guided by kindness rather than violence will make it less of a punishment.

Jacob Elordi delivers the best performance of the year through his physicality and emotional understanding of The Monster at the heart of the story. Although Frankenstein on the page has broken readers’ hearts seeing a pure creation tainted by the world, never has the story so powerfully targeted the pain felt in isolation and loneliness through del Toro’s writing and Elordi’s performance.

Overall, it is a brilliant cast that works together to make del Toro’s vision a reality. The film in itself is a testament to his detailed understanding and passion for the story. Where Victor has created The Monster as a means to pride himself on scientific status, giving no love to his own creation, del Toro recreates a masterpiece in a way that feels of value in love rather than invention.

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Where the atmosphere and look of the film is heavily a success in itself, del Toro knows that Frankenstein is more than a gothic tale to be told visually. He sees the whole heart of the story and the meaning of it now and when it was published and harnesses his skills and talent to bring it forth with such compassion. In a way, del Toro is the anti-Victor Frankenstein in which his creation is based in how it can shape our understanding and acceptance of differences and how cinema can strike us right in the heart.

Frankenstein is the best film this year so far and its masterful construction is all thanks to one of the most brilliant filmmakers working today.

‘Frankenstein (2025)’ Rating – 5/5