Review: I wasn’t really a fan of Lisa Frankenstein, and I checked out on the movie rather early on. Diablo Cody doesn’t write scripts that entertain me all too much, and this is such a hollow experience once you get past the neon wallpaper and cartoonish window dressing. Kathryn Newton stars as a hopeless romantic falling for Cole Sprouse’s corpse.
Lisa Frankenstein is almost exactly what you’d expect from a movie that came out during the futile first couple months of the calendar year, and in this case, best summarizes the unnecessary, bloated film slate for January and February in 2024. There are a few positives that are entertaining in a vacuum, but the overall experience needs a much spryer sense of whit and comedy.
Which is surprising coming from a writer like Diablo Cody, whom I usually don’t find to be that entertaining of a screenwriter, but it’s undeniable her sense of taste and comradery among a younger audience; she resonates more natural with youth than many of her contemporaries that are a handful of screenplays deep at this point.
And you could say that Lisa Frankenstein has all of the Diablo Cody tropes, but the plot boiling beneath this inert teen comedy is about as lifeless as Cole Sprouse’s casting as the dreary, often dimwitted corpse Kathryn Newton’s titular character is supposed to fall in love with.
We can all spare Newton from the rest of this drab misfire – she’s actually quite entertaining for much of the runtime in Lisa Frankenstein, appearing to deliver her usual kinetic energy that feels too good for a film of this caliber. It meanders around from plot point to plot point, rushing to get to a bloody finale that doesn’t really work for me, but at least she instills the sort of teenage insecurities that make her character churn.
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Sprouse feels like such a sight gag as a casting choice to play her creature crush. He doesn’t stand out, nor fold inside of a movie that doesn’t care to give him much to do. And honestly, given that I didn’t grow up watching the same teenage sitcoms that caused the Sprouse twins to gain fame and notoriety among my generation, his casting here doesn’t do much for me.
Director Zelda Williams adds a few nice flourishes of color and set design, really adding to the artificial, often cartoonish world set up by the screenplay and lively performances. It occasionally swallows the movie alive, relegating it to the same level of competency as lackluster Netflix movies, but it’s noticeable and clearly a decision in a movie that lacks gutsy filmmaking with a nuanced approach.
Needless to say, I wasn’t really a fan of Lisa Frankenstein, and I checked out rather early on. Diablo Cody doesn’t write movies that entertain me all too much, and this is such a hollow experience once you get past the neon wallpaper and cartoonish window dressing. Teen comedies can often get worse than this, but they can also get better.
Genre: Comedy, Horror, Romance
Watch Lisa Frankenstein (2024) on Peacock and VOD here
Lisa Frankenstein Movie Cast and Credits
Cast
Kathryn Newton as Lisa Swallows
Cole Sprouse as The Creature
Liza Soberano as Taffy
Henry Eikenberry as Michael Trent
Joe Chrest as Dale Swallows
Crew
Director: Zelda Williams
Writer: Diablo Cody
Cinematography: Paula Huidobro
Editors: Brad Turner, Serena Forghieri
Composer: Isabella Summers
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