Guillermo del Toro's adaptation of Mary Shelley's classic novel features the "ridiculously good-looking" Jacob Elordi as the monster – which results in a muddled film.

Guillermo del Toro has been obsessed by Frankenstein for decades. He has talked in countless interviews about wanting to adapt Mary Shelley's 1818 novel, and his last film, Pinocchio (2022), borrowed so much from it that it was almost an unofficial adaptation. But now at last he has made an official one, and so, understandably, he hasn't held back. His Frankenstein, which premiered at the Venice Film Festival on Saturday, is a no-expense-spared passion project, an over-the-top gothic fairy tale in which even a peasant's cottage has the dimensions of a Viking banqueting hall. But despite all the thinking time he had, Del Toro might well have missed the whole point of the classic book and the iconic creature at its heart. In short: his Frankenstein's monster is just too handsome.

The creature is played by Jacob Elordi, the ridiculously good-looking Australian star of Euphoria, Priscilla and Saltburn. When he was cast, some commentators questioned how appropriate he was – just as they did when he was cast as Heathcliff in Emerald Fennell's forthcoming version of Wuthering Heights. These objections seemed somewhat premature. After all, plenty of attractive actors have been made-up to be less attractive: just think of Colin Farrell, who is unrecognisable as an unsightly Batman villain in The Batman and its spin-off television series, The Penguin. And as Elordi is 6ft 5in tall, he is at least in the right height range for the role. In the opening sequence, set in an icy Arctic wilderness, the towering creature comes........

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