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Brain, voiced by Sean Hayes; Igor, voiced by John Cusack, and Scamper, voiced by Steve Buscemi |
Igor draws on the Frankenstein tale
IGOR
Directed by Anthony Leondis
Certificate U
MARY Shelley wanted the world to know that while Frankenstein looked like a monster, he was simply misunderstood.
Not a crazed criminal with the blood of innocents on his mind, just a lumbering and uber-ugly mish-mash of ill-fitting parts – like so many of us.
It has provided excellent screen time, from Boris Karloff’s horror to inspiring such brilliant comedies as the Mel Brooks/Gene Wilder Young Frankenstein through to Steve Martin’s The Man With Two Brains.
Igor, an animated adventure with a cast that includes John Cusack, Steve Buscemi and Eddie Izzard, treads the well-worn Frankenstein path but focuses this time on the hunchback who does the doctor’s hod-carrying.
We meet the down-trodden Igor, a servant who fancies himself as an evil genius, not the sidekick to some blathering scientist.
So when his employer gets mangled in an unfortunate accident, Igor sees his chance: he’ll put the finishing touches to his boss’s female Frankenstein, enter it into the annual Evil Science Fair and get he glory he deserves.
The usual winner is Izzard’s power-crazed Dr Schadenfreude, an acceptably evil baddie for our hunchbacked hero to come up against.
But there is a problem. The creature created from the hand of Igor is a rather sweet girl called Eva who harbours dreams of becoming an actress – not the type of beast he had hoped would rise from the operating table.
There are the usual lessons about being yourself and not worrying about the way you look, some riffs on beauty coming from within, but it lacks the subversion required to give such lessons any zip.
The animation is watchable but hardly ground-breaking, and the story’s occasionally flimsy premise bolstered by some gags about other films, aimed at keeping the adults accompanying the ankle-biters interested. Sadly, they are not funny enough, but the little ones won’t notice.
Despite being cutesy, the film falls down on the fact we’ve become rather spoilt by animated fare.
Pixar and Dreamworks have set such a high standard that Igor looks, well, a bit of a Frankenstein’s monster in comparison. |
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