The Bride

Truly, a modern fable in period dress...But boring. No other word for it. Director Franc Roddam (The Lords of Discipline, Quadrophenia) is a plodder. He can make dense films, ornate films, but he brings no special life to his projects. Here, he cannot escape the sumptuous confines his art directors have created or the too-rich images of cinematographer Stephen Burum. When the movie needs to race, it lurches instead, like the monster staggering castleward at the head of a torchlight parade.

Unfortunately, for all the admirable respect director Franc Roddam and writer Lloyd Fonvielle (who co-wrote Roddam's "The Lords of Discipline") bring to their extensive reworking of the legend of Frankenstein and his bride, they're over their heads -- waaaaayyy over. The result is a film that commands affection for its ambition and civilized sensibility, but nonetheless provokes unintended laughter. [16 Aug 1985, p.C18]

THE BRIDE must be commended for its attempt to tell two parallel stories, but unfortunately the halves do not balance, resulting in a picture in which the lead characters (Sting and Beals) become secondary to the supporting ones (Brown and Rappaport).

That the producer thinks Beals plus Sting equals big bucks at the box office may be the biggest contrivance of all. [19 Aug 1985]

The crosscutting between the two plot lines is so feeble and intrusive that it destroys whatever faint narrative momentum the film possesses.

What a bomb this highly touted union turns out to be...There is less drama than a Dr Pepper commercial, and its feeble attempt at camp makes "The Return of the Living Dead" look like a production of Stratford-on-Avon. [20 Aug 1985, p.C3]

Miss Beals's performance sinks this already muddled mess of a movie like a stone.