Origin stories — movies about how famous characters got their start — have their place, but in the wrong hands they become tales of boring people that end just as they’re getting interesting. Or tales that give us a version of events that doesn’t really jibe with what we know as the accepted history. Or tales that have no suspense at all because we know, more or less, where they’re heading — where they absolutely have to be heading.

"Victor Frankenstein" is all three kinds of origins story combined, a bleak, tedious enterprise, shot in earth tones and Gothic gray and blue. It tells the story of how Dr. Frankenstein began his career, as seen through the eyes of — no, this isn’t a joke — his lab assistant, Igor. The difference is that, in this case, Igor isn’t the limping, half-demented figure we know from the movies. He’s a brilliant, scientific mind, trapped in some bad circumstances (he’s a circus clown) and a twisted body.

"VICTOR FRANKENSTEIN" Rated PG-13 Now playing

Even the twisted body isn’t a permanent condition. When we meet him, Daniel Radcliffe, in his clown incarnation, has a hunch back and walks a lot like Marty Feldman in "Young Frankenstein." (In fact, if this movie had more wit, one would be tempted to think of Radcliffe’s characterization as a tribute to Marty Feldman and all he did for screen comedy.) But within hours of meeting Dr. Frankenstein (James McAvoy), Igor’s hunch back has been revealed and treated as a mere abscess (a real big, nasty abscess). Once it’s drained, Igor is just a shower and shave away from looking a lot like Harry Potter, but without the glasses.

It should be said, just in the interest of precision, that "Igor" is the name given to the circus clown by Victor. Before that the sad clown was so insignificant that he didn’t have a name, not even "Hey, you." Could anything be sadder — or more far-fetched? It turns out that Igor is a rather sober, intelligent young man, rather a bland figure, whose purpose in the film is to serve as a witness to his new friend and benefactor’s eccentricities.

If there’s one thing to take from "Victor Frankenstein," it’s McAvoy’s wholehearted attack on the character of Victor, as a brilliant, extroverted, socially bizarre figure who can’t contain himself in public, talks endlessly about his experiments and seems driven by a dark, tortured past. He makes Victor into a compelling character, but the movie can’t make his circumstances equally compelling. Most of the movie is a lot of throat clearing, leading up to the big experiment, which we all know is coming.

Though Victor’s obsessiveness makes for some creepy-comic moments — such as the misbegotten, cataclysmic presentation before his colleagues — the movie can’t shake an atmosphere of bleak earnestness. Much of "Victor Frankenstein" details Victor’s attempts to do his experiments and the efforts of the police to curtail his efforts. In this scenario, where can the audience locate a rooting interest? What is it that we should hope to see? Rooting for Frankenstein is the same as rooting for disaster. To root for the police is to hope nothing will happen. That’s not much for an audience to hold on to.

Review by Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle