Towards the end of this humdrum spectacle, Aaron Eckhart's titular creature describes himself as consisting of ''a dozen used parts from eight different corpses.'' Much the same could be said of I, Frankenstein. Unsurprisingly, the modern day-set film owes a big debt to Mary Shelley's book Frankenstein, particularly in its opening section, but arguably an even bigger one to 2003's Underworld with Kevin Grevioux, who had a hand in writing both films, exchanging the earlier movie's war between vampires and werewolves for one between gargoyles and demons. I, Frankenstein also nods towards Highlander as Eckhart's centuries-old hunk stalks about with eyes of steel and overcoat of generous length. You can even detect a hint of the Bond movie The World is Not Enough, given that Chuck star Yvonne Strahovski makes for one of the least believable big screen scientists since Denise Richards' infamous turn as Dr. Christmas Jones.
To be fair, Eckhart is physically impressive and Bill Nighy and his raised eyebrow do their best in the role of demon leader Naberius. But I, Frankenstein shares something else with it's monster-hero, something much worse than its patchwork nature: The film is distinctly lacking in the soul department. C
