FRANKENSTEIN UNBOUND
Unbound from what? I don't get it.
This is the movie for anybody who ever wanted to jump right into a book they were reading, grab the hero by the shoulders, and cry out "Give your head a shake, man!"
John Hurt stars as a weapons researcher in 2031 whose experiments with "atomic implosion" particle beams are causing rips in time. (in a notably cheesy sequence, a Mongol horseman jumps out of the sky and attacks him, never pausing to even look twice at his new surroundings) Soon he finds himself (and his car) sucked back to 18th-century Switzerland, where everybody speaks English and he meets up with a certain Doctor (yeah, Doctor) Frankenstein (Raul Julia). He also runs into a young writer named Mary (guess which one) (played by Bridget Fonda) at the trial of a woman accused of witchcraft and killing Frankenstein's wee brother. So he tries to stem the tide of the series of tragedies in the familiar Frankenstein story.
It all sounds a little more compelling than it is. The acting is a mixed job (Hurt, Julia, and the guy playing the Creature are all quite good. Fonda is awful, though, and when Jason Patric and Michael Hutchence show up as Byron and Shelley, well, you've just gotta laugh.
The scenes in the future are a little more interesting than those in the past, especially once Hurt's experiments shear off the tops of a couple of office towers (think the insurance companies would pay up for that?). And what's with the plot ripping off Back To The Future at about the 75-minute mark?
It's not bad for Roger Corman's first time behind the camera in twenty years, but it's ultimately nothing too special. It must be noted, however, that the Creature's left eye really is as it's shown on the (very cool) box cover. Sure, an eye wouldn't work at all like that, but it looks awesome.
Filmed in Italy; based on the book by Brian W. Aldiss.