Lamar Reviews - Lisa Frankenstein (Airdate 2/23/2024)

As a movie critic I see a lot of movies. Most of the time I have a very good idea of what kind of movie I’m walking into. Comedy, drama, action, horror, and sometimes a mixture of all of that in a quirky sort of way. I can’t always be sure, but I take a chance. Every once in a while, I am rewarded with great find. A good example of that is Warm Bodies, the Zombie love story. R is a young introspective zombie that meets Julie, and they form a bond. Sounds stupid, but it is a well-made, hilarious movie that I would recommend to anyone that loves quirky movies.

I took that chance with Lisa Frankenstein. A movie about a girl, Lisa, played by Kathryn Newton, whose life has been turned upside down by a tragedy and finds herself at a new school her senior year in 1989. She is struggling to fit in. Her father has remarried to an evil stepmom, played Carla Gugino. Her stepsister Taffy, played by Liza Soberano, is sweet and supportive, and may be the best part of this terrible movie. Lisa spends most of her time in an abandoned cemetery. In the worst Meet-Cute ever, a freak accident, that the movie does not even bother to explain or justify, reanimates a corpse, played by Cole Sprouse, who never utters a word. As she gets to know him, she must keep him a secret from her family and classmates.

At this point the stage is set. Everything is wide open; the possibilities are endless. But the first-time director, Zelda Williams, daughter of Robin Williams, can’t seem to get any kind of continuity going. The movie is all over the place and over the top in everything they do. We have murder by accident, murder to get spare body parts for the undead boyfriend. We are expected to be on Lisa’s side, and are for a while, and then she turns into a selfish teenager just getting what she wants no matter the consequences. Even with that she only goes halfway. The movie never commits to being anything.  But the major crime this movie is guilty of is not being clever in the comedy. In this type of movie that is the one thing that is unforgivable. It is lazy.

The movie is 1 hour and 41 minutes, which seems like days, Rated PG-13 for violent content, bloody images, sexual material, language, sexual assault, teen drinking, drug content, and wasting everybody’s time.

I was excited because Diablo Cody wrote it. She wrote Juno and Jennifer’s body, both good movies, especially Juno. This is NOT that! I expected quirky and clever, this is not. I expected dark but it never quite made it too dark. I actually wish it had been horrible so that I could rant about it. It wasn’t even that.

This is one of those times when I like to think I’m a heroic movie critic that has sacrificed myself so that you don’t have to.

If you really want to see it, give it a couple of days, it will be streaming on something.

My Score: 1 Bud