Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

I love how people say the transformation was good when there is little transformation from Dr. to Hyde. All they did here was have the actor twitch his head and act stiff and make bizarre faces like he was constipated.

So all you have is the worst remake of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde!

The one BIG mistake this film makes is when the helper of DR. Jekyll testifies, it doesn't make any sense just like most of this slow moving farce.

I gave it a 2 instead of 1 cause of the yellow lights that were used during the night scenes (HPS Bulbs In the Light Fixtures) just sheer brilliance.

First and most important, the film is solid and entertaining and Scott gives the performance of his life.

Most interesting to this reviewer was how ambitious this production was. In the first decade of the millennium, the Canuck industry was still trying to find itself. Soul searching.

Ultimately the industry would decide it was easier and more profitable to aim for niche product other producers had avoided.

Which is why (and I have said this before) 90% of the X-Mas movies that appear in late fall are Canadian, and without shame or apology.

(There is even a 100% Canuck version of Miracle on 34th Street, but that is another review entirely).

Canada is also where franchises go to die, which is why you might see might see version 4 or 5 of a film series you did not know HAD a 4 or 5..? Canada to the rescue.

So in 2008 we had a rare in stance of Canada perhaps getting too ambitious for its own good, and this is the result. For Canadians, it is almost comic to see Toronto pretending to be a US city -- again -- and reporters carrying mikes where the call letters start with "W".

That said, the film is solid. Skerritt picked up a paycheck for doing only a few scenes and Krista Bridges -- an actress you would ordinarily only see in the aforesaid X-Mas knockoffs -- also does a solid job.

Recommended.

If you picked up some poo and clapped your hands together you would have more fun, Mr. Hyde lands in the dull section and never leaves it. Scott isn't perfect but his performance(s) are the best part of the film which is not saying a lot. He seems to be enjoying himself as Mr Hyde but he would look more at home in a gay bar he is just to camp to be believable and it adds little to the audience's enjoyment. Hyde isn't exactly scary, more like a mix between The Joker and Jack Sparrow but whatever the mix it does not work or come together. He also isn't monstrous, which disappointed me no end. The ending was obvious and a real let down when it could have been much more so you end up feeling flat and thinking there goes 90 minutes of my life I wont get back, there is no suspense whats so ever and Mr Hyde is about as scary as watching paint dry. The court scene is laughable. In a word AVOID.

As a borderline schizoid and fan of the original short story I'm always up for perusing any new J&H material. After catching this curio on Sky I felt compelled to comment. The usual themes of duality and the nature of guilt and morality are all present and correct. As is usual in most screen re-imaginings of Stephenson's tale an obligatory love-interest is tacked on in the form of a pretty female lawyer with whom Hyde confides. There's no real gratuitous violence or gore here, the horror seems to be attempting to stem from the psychological, unfortunately this never really gels together. As such, we're left with a fairly entertaining if unnecessary and understated (there's no real physical changes apparent between Henry & Edward) version of the familiar story. There's a fairly feeble 'twist' ending that anyone not recovering from recent cranial surgery should see coming at least a couple of furlongs off.

5/10. P.S: For a vastly superior contemporary take on the tale viewers could do much worse than check out the recent BBC mini series 'Jekyll' starring James Nesbitt. It's available on DVD and well worth a watch.

In Boston, a mysterious serial-killer is attacking and murdering women. The distinguished Dr. Henry Jekyll (Dougray Scott) asks his friend Gabe Utterson (Tom Skerritt) to indicate an attorney for him and he schedules a visit to Claire Wheaton (Krista Bridges). He confesses that he was the subject of his research with psychotropic trying to isolate the evil side of the human beings and he is responsible for the murders. When Dr. Jekyll goes to court for the trial, Claire wants to prove that the killer is the unknown Mr. Edward Hyde.

This umpteenth version of "Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde" is a forgettable update of the classic story. Set in Boston in the present days, instead of London in the end of the Nineteenth Century, the plot is confused and the conclusion is predictable in spite of the good acting of Dougray Scott. My vote is five.

Title (Brazil): "Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde – O Médico e o Monstro" ("Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde – The Doctor and the Monster")