The Bride

Washington Post by

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]

Miami Herald by Bill Cosford

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.

Chicago Reader by Dave Kehr

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

Chicago Tribune by Gene Siskel

What a letdown! The remake of the 1935 classic ''The Bride of Frankenstein'' with rock star Sting as the doctor and Jennifer Beals as the reconstructed bride is a complete failure in telling its principal story.

Los Angeles Times by Kevin Thomas

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 New York Times by Stephen Holden

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