Jacob Elordi’s ‘Ridiculously’ Handsome Frankenstein Monster Divides Critics

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Frankenstein’s monster is not supposed to be handsome, at least not in the traditional version.

However, Euphoria actor Jacob Elordi is changing that, and some critics are gushing about the result as the first reviews flow in for Guillermo del Toro’s new Netflix movie, Frankenstein.

Not every reviewer thinks it makes sense to redefine the monster as “ridiculously good-looking,” though, in the words of BBC.

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Pan’s Labyrinth director del Toro’s choice to make the monster “hunky” results in a “muddled film,” that reviewer declared, sniping, “His Frankenstein’s monster is just too handsome.” According to BBC, the del Toro movie premiered at the Venice Film Festival on Aug. 30.

“I had a vision. An idea took shape in my mind. Inevitable. Unavoidable. And then it became truth,” the narrator says in the teaser trailer that dropped on YouTube. “In seeking life, I created death.”

But other critics like del Toro’s adaptation of the iconic Mary Shelley novel.

“One of del Toro’s finest, this is epic-scale storytelling of uncommon beauty, feeling and artistry,” wrote David Rooney in The Hollywood Reporter.

The Guardian’s critic agreed that Elordi has a different look than past Frankenstein monsters, calling him a “bit of a hottie” despite the “prosthetic scars.” The reviewer, Peter Bradshaw, called the movie a “stately melodrama.”

Oscar Isaac plays Victor Frankenstein in the film. Both he and Elordi earned a 13-minute standing ovation for Frankenstein in Venice, according to Variety.

IndieWire’s reviewer called the movie “a big, juicy, glossy, expensive mounting of the Mary Shelley classic novel for Netflix.”

Del Toro opened up about his fascination with the creature in an interview with Netflix’s Tudum site.

“I’ve lived with Mary Shelley’s creation all my life,” del Toro told Tudum. “For me, it’s the Bible. But I wanted to make it my own, to sing it back in a different key with a different emotion.”

The movie premieres on Nov. 7 on Netflix.

According to Tudum, the movie poses the question, “Who is the real monster?”

“Mary Shelley’s masterpiece is rife with questions that burn brightly in my soul: existential, tender, savage, doomed questions that only burn in a young mind and only adults and institutions believe they can answer,” del Toro explained. “For me, only monsters hold the secrets I long for.”

The movie has a 77% critical score on Rotten Tomatoes, although the site wrote that Elordi “steals the show.”