James Swift: Swift @ The Movies: 'Frankenstein' fumbles

Feb. 23—Our movie of the week, "Lisa Frankenstein," is one of those flicks that likes to celebrate a version of the 1980s that didn't actually exist.

According to this movie, the entire decade was a jumble of pastel colors and progressive alternative rock music and quasi-futuristic kitchens and EVERYTHING having a cursive, angular font.

In reality, the '80s was just brown. Not even a fashionable, chic brown either — we're talking wood paneling on EVERYTHING, including cars. Everything smelled like cigarette smoke and bleach — including McDonald's — and minimum wage was like $3 an hour. And radio stations weren't playing trendy, indie darlings like The Pixies and Galaxie 500; it was either REO Speedwagon or static, depending on how much aluminum foil you had wrapped around the antenna.

In hindsight, you kinda' have to wonder why so many young filmmakers seem to revere the era as some utopian point in American history.

Well, as evident by "Lisa Frankenstein," the answer is apparent — because none of them actually LIVED through it.

Now, before we get into the movie itself, we should probably point out the director of the film. It's Zelda Williams, who just so happens to be the daughter of Robin Williams. So right off the bat, she's got some mighty big shoes to fill.

Maybe she should've went for the flip-flops instead.

There's not really one overarching thing that sinks the movie. Rather, this is the kind of flick that dies by a thousand cuts. It has promise and even a few flashes of brilliance, but it's clear that the people who made it just didn't have enough material to pad out a 90-minute movie.

The title "Lisa Frankenstein" — a portmanteau that calls to mind kitschy school supplies and Victorian horror literature, two things that couldn't be any more opposite — lets you know up front that this thing is going to be more of a pell-mell salute to the '80s than a genuine three-act story. Even worse, it's basically a shameless ode to 1989, a year that doesn't feel idiosyncratically '80s OR idiosyncratically '90s. Call me crazy, but it's hard to feel nostalgic for a year that gave us the Exxon-Valdez oil spill AND Milli Vanilli.

"Lisa Frankenstein" is one of those movies that does what a LOT of movies do when they realize they don't have enough story. About four or five times in the flick, the film turns into slow-motion music videos — these little asides that don't really add anything to the plot but do have the benefit of adding another 10 or 15 minutes to the runtime. Seems to me the director was more interested in montages than a feature-length production.

Oh, and the plot? Well, it's basically the old Shelley yarn, except this time around instead of Dr. Frankenstein we have an angst-ridden high-schooler played by an actress who is clearly in her late 20s, maybe early 30s. Through some sort of supernatural fluke, she ends up becoming the guardian ad litem of a reanimated corpse — in the film's best bit, she gives him a makeover, tanning bed flash fry and all — and it isn't long before the both of them are caught up in this weird love rectangle with a cheerleader and the editor of the high school literary magazine (yeah, that last one has to be a first for a kooky teen-romance comedy).

Now, if the whole thing was played as a "Young Frankenstein"-type farce, maybe we would've ended up with a better movie. Instead, we get a movie that goes the predictable horror-spoof route, which means there's ample dismemberments and disembowelings tossed into the stew ... which definitely messes up the rhythm and atmosphere of the movie. Inevitably, what we get is a movie that's too goofy to be scary but too bloody to be comedic.

But at least the dining room aesthetics are cool, I suppose.

At my most generous, the best I can afford "Lisa Frankenstein" is a mediocre TWO PIECES OF POPCORN OUT OF FOUR rating. Hopefully, the unavoidable sequel "Trapper Keeper Werewolf" will be a marked improvement.