On why he chose the project

"In the last 20, 30 years, [Frankenstein has] been claimed by a whole generation of academics and scholars as a seminal piece of literature of that time. [It's] something which now, post-Freud, they feel reveals so many observations about family life, and incest, father-and-son relationships, and husband and wife relationships. [Frankenstein] speaks loudly to people, partly because it's so elusive. There's no definitive interpretation of it - it's certainly more than just a monster story.," Kenneth Branagh, (Berardinelli).

Mary Shelley, of course, gets credit for the novel, but the two writers credited with the screen play are Steph Lady and Frank Darabont, a two-time Oscar nominee for screenplay writing (1994's The Shawshank Redemption 1999's The Green Mile).

It seems that after the screenplay was delivered to the director, there were some massive changes. Los Angeles writer Lady says that "director Branagh, who stars as scientist Victor Frankenstein, revised the script to magnify his own role and shrink Robert De Niro's presence as the Creature. De Niro's role, Lady claims, was cut by half. "Maybe the Frankenstein myth overtook the movie," says the writer, still reeling from shock after finally seeing the film last week. "The fear that I had from the very beginning is that we would create an abomination, a patchwork monster." (Johnson)

Ego Trip

Before I had seen the Lady quote, I thought that the biggest problem with the film was that Branagh's ego interfered with his work.

Victor in the novel is not a hero.

In the novel, Victor attended Ingolstadt to learn, period. In the movie, Victor is now specifically studying to be a medical doctor. He wants to learn how to create the creature in order to bring an end to death, since he lost his own mother during the birth of his young brother (an embellishment to Shelley's text).

In the novel, Victor sees the creature, is horrified, and runs away from it. The next time he checks his lab, the creature is gone. Out of sight, out of mind. In the movie, they add a cholera epidemic to the town around Ingolstadt, so that when the monster escapes, Victor thinks it will die, as newborns are vulnerable to cholera. Not the actions of a true hero, but at least his behavior is somewhat excusable, and somewhat better than the behavior of Victor in Shelley's version.

In the novel, the monster kills William and frames Justine Moritz. There is a trial, and Justine is hanged. Victor knows that the creature is truly responsible, but refuses to say anything, because he cannot bear to reveal the secret of his creation to anyone. In the movie, the onus is taken off Victor because as soon as Justine is taken in as a suspect, a lynch mob comes to hang the child-killer before any kind of trial can happen. Victor has no opportunity to conceal his creation of the creature because everything happens too fast, so he comes across as more heroic.

In fact, there is quite a tense, if somewhat overblown, scene as we watch Victor trying to save Justine from the mob, but he is just too late. We then watch his sorrow.

In the novel, the monster extracts a promise from Victor to create a bride for him. Victor agrees at first, but at the last second changes his mind, refusing to inflict another monster on the world. The monster is furious, and promises, "I will be with you on your wedding night."

Despite this promise, Victor marries Elizabeth, never once telling her about the monster.

After the monster says, "If you deny me my wedding night, I will be with you on yours," Victor has about fifteen guards around him and Elizabeth after they are married and has told everyone about the creature.

As Brian D. Johnson noted in his review, "Before long, the megalomania of the character and that of the director become indistinguishable." (Johnson)

Other annoying features

Also some scenes seemed out of place. The dramatic confrontation on Mont Blanc was staged like it was a superhero battling a supervillain, with giant leaps and dramatic falls down ice floes, and this seemed to serve no purpose.

Other differences

What he put back in the film version

Cuts are inevitable in any film version of a novel, and for the most part, I have no problem with them. So the differences I've listed above are mostly trivial. But Branagh did have certain features in his film that previous film versions have left out. Most important, he left in the Walton framework, though some critics carp that he did this badly. But I think it's important that it's there.

He also left in the arctic pursuit and setting in which Frankenstein tells his story.

Most important, though, is the Creature's ability to speak well. This is a literate Monster we are dealing with. And a more human-scaled one as well. DeNiro didn't wear lifts in his shoes or bulk up his size in any way. This is a major difference in a screen depiction of the Creature.

Elizabeth

Another problem I have with the movie is the expansion of the Victor-Elizabeth relationship, which comes at the expense of the monster's story.

According to Branagh, "It was important to me to have a very strong woman's role in a film of this size, and not just a token of love interest. [...] I wanted Elizabeth and Victor to be two equal partners." (qtd in "Kenneth Branagh's Mary Shelley's Frankenstein", Frankenstein's Castle)

This is a noble sentiment, indeed, but the problem is that in the book, Elizabeth is not an equal partner. She's is kept away from Victor's work, and he shields her from the truth of what is happening to him.

Elizabeth's end is both gruesome and grotesque, but critics are split on whether or not it's in the spirit of Shelley. I do not like the final scene, where Victor brings Elizabeth back to life, and she then sets herself on fire. I felt it was gratuitous, but perhaps by then, I was just tired of the film.

Comparisons inevitable

          "As stated in the preface, an important purpose of Shelley's Frankenstein
          is the "exercise of any untried resources of mind". The dedication of the
          novel to her father, William Godwin, suggests the kind of exercise she
          designed. Godwin observed that, all too often, vital questions are not asked,
          with the result that opportunities to produce better results are ignored. In
          order to demonstrate the great value of her father's insight, Shelley left the
          story unfinished. Discrepancies, unexplained changes, gaps, and curious
          inclusions are parts of the machinery Shelley provided that allow the reader
          to discover some truth in the way Godwin said truth eventually appears with
          "double lustre" in the sequel. It is this machinery that Branagh discarded." (Wolf)

Review excerpts:

From The New Statesman & Society:

From The Christian Century

What ordinarily makes a horror tale horrifying is the careful construction of a situation which has the appearance of normalcy but then discloses some terrifyingly "other" reality" Unlike Shelley, however, Branagh never establishes the veneer of normalcy; in fact, he strives mightily to do the opposite. Cameras shoot from wild top-down or down-up angles, swirling around the actors. Conversation proceeds at a dervish-like pace, with much screeching and shouting by Frankenstein's adoptive sister and fiancee Elizabeth (Helena Bonham Carter) and fellow medical student Henry Clerval (Tom Hulce). Whereas Shelley's Frankenstein seeks out the serene beauty of the Swiss Alps to escape his guilt and dread, Branagh's Frankenstein fights his way through torrential thunderstorms and fog, encountering disaster at nearly every turn. I found myself tiring of the film's frenzied pace - every scene seeking a climax and the sound score hammering it home. Apparently Branagh intended with this surrealistic style to evoke Frankenstein's megalomania, his hubristic desire to create as only God can." (Rike)

From The New Republic:

From Maclean's

From Time

"This is not to suggest that a bunch of 1930s scenarists were better writers than Mary Shelley, only that they had a clearer sense of their medium's imperatives than her present servants do. James Whale, who made the 1931 version and its even stronger sequel, The Bride of Frankenstein, certainly was a better director than Branagh. The latter has just created isolated sensations that aren't even frightening. Whale had real style. He understood that if it was too late to take this tale completely seriously, it was too soon to camp it up or make it an exercise in empty disgust. Delicately poising irony, dark sentiment and terror, he drew you into his web. Branagh never weaves one. He's too busy serving his own expansive ego." (Schickel)

Sources:

Johnson, Brian D, "Mary Shelley's Frankenstein", movie review, Maclean's, Nov 14, 1994 v107 n46 p112