An intense, must-see thrilling performance from both Cumberbatch and Miller. The dialogues filled with static chemistry, a beautiful and perfect mix between beauty and horror, a destabilized yet animated stage that shows all facets of life and death. A hypnotizing and cutting-edge play, a real work of art that is absolutely not to be missed.

Be warned: I am an English teacher who loves this book and both of the lead actors. Continue at your own risk.I had the extraordinary privilege recently of finally seeing the Nick Dear production of Frankenstein, a live theater production directed by Danny Boyle in 2011.For those who have been living under a rock, this special production is actually very closely based on the original novel by Mary Shelley and is remarkable in that the two leading men, Benedict Cumberbatch and Johnny Lee Miller, alternated the two lead roles on every performance. This was a tribute to their acting skills and a nod to the fact that the main characters, Victor Frankenstein and his Creature, are very much character foils for each other. Due to "an unprecedented audience demand" National Theater Live and Fathom (the producing companies) decided to do a film encore for Halloween week 2014 in Regal theaters across the US. Both performances were available.The film opened with some behind the scenes commentary that was really interesting, but I'm not going into detail on that right now because, let's face it, if you're reading this, you want to see my reaction to the performance itself, not just me fangirling over the actors...so moving on. It starts the same way the description for the play starts, a circular embryonic sac with a figure inside moving slightly. As the music gets increasingly dramatic, so do the movements of the actor inside the sac. Eventually a hand appears and with some dramatic lighting a nearly naked Benedict Cumberbatch emerged and flopped onto the ground. What followed were at least ten minutes (it seemed like) of him stretching, spasming, and struggling on the floor. He is covered in realistic looking bloody scars, is making pitiful noises and looks as repulsive as that particular man is capable of looking. When I first see him, my instinct was "eww" but after a few minutes of watching him struggle to control his limbs and gasp with the effort to stand, I found myself whispering, "You can do it, come on" and sincerely meaning it. That's acting, ladies and gentlemen.Victor (Miller) comes in, is visibly repulsed by what is writhing on the floor and reaching for him in supplication, throws a robe at his creation, and leaves. For those who are a bit unfamiliar with the text, basically, the play just jumped into the inciting incident and skipped all of the boring prologue and extraneous frame story. We then slightly divert again from the original story because the play follows the Creature's story instead of Victor's. This makes a lot of sense since Victor pretty much collapses in the book and does nothing useful at all until he sees the Creature again anyway.Cumberbatch provided an inspiring performance as the Creature. We feel his pain as he is abused, experiences the first beauties of nature, goes through friendship, education, betrayal, and the beginnings of revenge. His quickly developing character is clearly showcased and completely believable, unlike most movie adaptations where the Creature seems to almost wake up super intelligent automatically or to wake up stupid and never progress. The story line follows that of Shelley's book and gives the audience a clear picture of his complex and thoroughly developed character.The conversation and confrontation between Victor and the Creature was enough to give me chills. I have nothing more to say on the subject.I particularly appreciated how they approached the Bride scene. A lot more detail in how the Creature feels about himself, doubt about how his bride might work out, and his desperation for a companion. More brilliant acting there. A special shout out should also go to Miller's performance here--you really get the mad-scientist vibe as he seems to quite literally wear himself to the bone in just a few scenes.They chose a brave interpretation of the Creature/Elizabeth scene in the bedroom. Since that section of the book is told through Victor's perspective who is not actually in the room, it's always been a big question what happened in there. I LOVED what they went with. The Creature introduces himself to Elizabeth and slowly gets her comfortable to the idea of what he is (also, in this version, Victor has confessed to Elizabeth what he did. Definitely not in the book but since it led to this great scene, I don't mind so much) and explains what Victor did to him. Elizabeth shows him pity and sympathy and promises to take his side and to talk to Victor about his responsibilities and immoral choices. She tries to get to know him better and he explains what he has learned from humanity and from Victor about breaking promises...and then he breaks one of his own in his quest for revenge for the loss of his bride. Here's the brave part: before the Creature kills Elizabeth, he rapes her and Victor walks in at that moment. I believe this is totally plausible even if it wasn't in what I remember of the book.The ending once again cut out the unnecessary frame story with the ship's captain.--I also watched the other version which was brilliant, but I preferred Cumberbatch as Creature with Miller as the mad scientist. Cumberbatch as Frankenstein seemed to have quite a bit of his Sherlock persona slipping into it.In conclusion. Excellent book, excellent performances, and I really can't wait to teach it again next semester. Especially if I can show either/both of these while doing so...I think I'd walk over broken glass to do that.

My only wish with seeing this on the big screen is " I wish I had seen it live"..My daughter took me to see it at the Luna cinema in Leederville on Sunday and the viewing was Jonny lee miller as Frankenstein and Benedict Cumberbatch as Victor.I was moved, by Jonny's performance as he takes you past the monster and you see a man in search of love and acceptance. I was at loss for words, you cannot fault the mans performance..Had I got to know Frankenstein, I would have taken him in and befriended him? maybe.Benedict Cumberbatch was very good as Victor also, a mad genius, a tortured soul with no one recognizing his brilliance and what he could do, or believed he was as good as God. He found the secret to life itself. He made man.You feel sorry for him, yet angry as well, He disregards friends and family in his desperate pursuit of his monster, and will do anything and all to destroy it, not taking into account that his monster has become educated and only wants to be accepted in main society.. something we all crave, inside us there is a bit of victor/Frankenstein. If there is one thing to do this weekend check out your local cinema and see if they are screening this gem, it will blow you away.

Last night I saw the second screening of Frankenstein. The movie theatre showed the play twice, two weeks apart, the first time with Benedict Cumberbatch as the Creature, the second time with Jonny Lee Miller as the Creature.Since it was my second time watching the play I was really interested to see how the different actors would interpret the monster. JLM initially interpreted the monster initially hesitant and drooling, basing his on monster his two year old son. BC based his monster on stroke victims, so less drolling but also less overall control of his limbs. Amazing how the same yet different. I'd have to say, after watching both castings, I am slightly biased towards Jonny Lee Miller as the better monster and Benedict Cumberbatch the better Doctor. The play started with the creature "being born" and then learning to walk. When BC played the monster, that was the only part of the play I didn't like. BC took nearly 20 minutes of flopping around the stage, which was very "arty" but a bit too long. For JLM his beginning was much shorter, which I appreciated, as it brought the rest of the fantastic dialogue in sooner. (Or maybe I was just more prepared for the opening this time around). For myself it was the scene with just the monster and the doctor talking in the mountain cave that was phenomenal with this casting! When the monster asks the doctor to make him a bride, Jonny Lee Miller brought such a "theatrical" flare to the creature, it reminded me of both Shakespeare and Phantom of the Opera. BC as the neurotic doctor was spot on as you could almost follow his decent into madness.I hope they end up putting this filming out on DVD just so I can rewatch this over and over (They probably won't, but I can dream!) So well done!