Intensity	Stupidity:Nudity Ratio 7:0	Budget Medium

Oh, boy! Another remake of Jekyll and Hyde! Just what I wanted!

Pretty much right off the bat we get a dead co-ed (of course it is the one that was going home to study) and then we are introduced to both Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde having some sort of argument, though oddly they are wearing the same outfit. Hmmm. The scene then switches to a couple of cops who are investigating the murder. The investigation takes them to Jekyll's workplace where they met Mr. Hyde and run like scared rabbits when he threatens them. By some strange coincidence, it turns out that the dead co-ed's friends hung out at a coffee shop run by Dr. Jekyll's girlfriend. Hyde shows up at the coffee shop and sees another co-ed in a conversation with said girlfriend who inexplicably does not recognize him. Hyde follows the co-ed to the library where she collects some books for her term paper and then kills her too. After killing a few more people as Hyde, Dr. Jekyll goes back to the coffee shop for Opera Night in tails and a top hat and then transforms into Hyde, beats the crap out of a few more people before getting into a standoff with the cops where he is ultimately defeated by Jekyll taking them both to their deaths over the side of a building.

There is enough to like about this movie that it is worth reviewing but at the same time there is so much wrong that it is also going to be a lot of fun to take pot shots at. So lets get the good stuff out of the way first (trust me, this won't take long). First of all there are five solid B movie actors. In no particular order they are : Tony Todd (prolific seems a weak adjective for this guy's cinematic output which includes "The Man from Earth"), Vernon Wells (almost as prolific but has "Manosaurus" on his credits), Tim Thomerson (in his second Jekyll and Hyde move, other credits include "The Angry Beavers'), Tracy Scoggins ("Toy Soldiers" and dozens of TV shows including TJ Hooker) and Deborah Shelton ("Hunk" and dozens of TV shows also including TJ Hooker). If none of these guys are great actors, they can all deliver there lines with a straight face and much more dignity than this particular script deserves. Tracy and and Deborah have at times in the past been cast as eye candy (I did mention their TJ Hooker credits), but here they are playing solid characters with parts important to the plot. It is always great to see that a few women manage to make a career out of B movies. There are so many male character actors who have turned a fairly handsome face into a franchise. If Tim Thomerson can do it, why not Deborah Shelton? Decent actress, still looks great and some of us remember her fondly.

Lest you think that the acting is wonderful, let me set you straight. These are solid B movie actors which mean they hit their mark and spout their lines without giggling. I thought that Anthony Perkins went too far in "Edge of Sanity" where he played both Jekyll and Hyde but Todd goes so much further. Perkins played Jekyll as cold and emotionless with perfectly combed hair. His Hyde was psychotic and his stringy hair was always falling in his eyes. I believe the director let him get away with it because he was going for a parable and not a true re-telling of the story. While Dr. Jekyll seemed anchored in the Victorian era, Mr. Hyde inhabited something that seemed closer to modern times, so Perkins' horrid acting was just one more jarring note. In this movie, I don't know if I would blame Todd or the director and writers. The story is muddled, the characters ill defined and stupid. Hyde drops a bunch of trendy remarks that seem to say that yes, he is a monster but he is an urbane monster. Our poor detectives are dense and slow even for movie cops. Everything points to Hyde and Jekyll. Because we know the story, we know that Jekyll and Hyde the same person but the cops should be looking at both of them as "Persons of Interest". When one of Jekyll's colleges mentions the other incident where Jekyll sent a victim some cash, they pay no attention. That's right, they are talking to Jekyll because he sent the parents of the first dead co-ed $50,000 and that looked suspicious but when it turns out he had done this before and they don't even ask a follow up question.

Tracy Scoggins plays one of the cops. It is an absolute movie rule that at least one of the cops will have a troubled past that will usually involve a dead partner. In this case, the partner died when his gun exploded. As I was trying to figure out how to get a gun to explode, Tracy utters a line about how a piece of the skull hit her in the eye and that is why she doesn't carry a gun anymore. This little bit of information comes after Jekyll has explained how his new drug works, so my head was already spinning pretty bad. Let's see if I have this straight. Jekyll was working on a drug that used nanobots to physically change the genes in a primate's heart to correct a congenital weakness. Not the worst cobbling together of scientific catch phrases I've ever heard, but the writer wasn't done yet. Seems Jekyll had the same congenital heart problems as the chimp. As the drug (is a nanobot injection really a drug?) did not cause any side effects in the trial with the chimps, Jekyll injects himself and the drug causes him to temporarily morph into a ape-like human who is gleefully evil. Umm, sure. The good news is that his heart seems to be okay now. Bad news is that occasionally the good doctor becomes the despicable Mr. Hyde until Hyde takes more of the drug and returns to Jekyll mode. Wait, What? The drug changes him back? I can't imagine that he is purposefully turning back to Hyde, so when the drug wears off, he transforms? How did he change to Hyde the first time? Can't he just take a bit of the drug every day and keep Hyde at bay? Ohh, but it gets better. Turns out there is yet another metamorphosis that our poor Dr. Jekyll is subjected to. Apparently he becomes a gigantic monkey that can speak. In fact, it is from this GM (gigantic monkey) stage that we learn that the nanobots are able to heal almost any injury instantly. Okay, now I see why we have clinical trials for new drugs. On a monkey the drug fixes a heart defect, on a human the same drug causes them to become a homicidal GM with a penchant towards exposition who can heal bullet wounds before they cause any damage. Yeah, I'm thinking the FDA is not going to approve this one.

Early on we meet Hyde's first victim. She is seen talking to her friends who encourage her to come out with them on Saturday night, She states that she needs to spend all her time studying and is not even aware of the event they want her to go to. As she takes her leave, her friends are shocked that she is parked at the end of a dark alley. Shrugging she says that it is the cheapest place to park. Short of putting a neon sign over her head saying "Victim #1", I don't think the writer could have telegraphed her status any more. I was severely disappointed when she was immediately chased down and savaged by the monster. The writer set up a painfully obvious stereotype and then did not play against it. The rest of the movie plays out the same, nothing that happens is even slightly surprising. We know what is going to happen long before any of the characters. Another problem is that Jekyll is just not particularly sympathetic. In the original novella and in most adaptations of the story, we get to meet Jekyll before he creates the drug. He is usually arrogant and self centered, but at his core a good human being whose pride is his downfall. Here we meet Jekyll after he has already lost the battle with Hyde. If there was ever any pride and strength in the man, it is gone by this point and all we see is a whinny, sniveling coward. At the end he sort of kills himself when he sees no other way out. This is actually a bit of a cop out as well, why not get Hyde under control and submit yourself for medical research. Sure the experiment did not turn out as you planned, but maybe there is something to learn from this particular failure, like, oh, I don't know, genetic fucking modification! You're switching back and forth between two different species! Don't you think that this is worth studying in and of itself? Sheesh, what a loser. And for me this is a big part of the problem with the movie. We know immediately that Jekyll and Hyde are the same person. We also know that Jekyll is aware that Hyde is out doing evil things and yet he doesn't do anything about it. At least the original Dr. Jekyll kept a laboratory record of his experiment, our Dr. Jekyll, nada, nothing, no notes at all. Perhaps some skin scrapings, blood work, physical measurements, ECG or something to document what is happening to him, but no. All he does is try to cover up the crimes and whines.

So is it worth seeing, sort of. It is not a great retelling of a classic tale but it is reasonably polished and if you don't pay too much attention to the film's inconsistencies and just go along with the flow of the movie, it is not bad. It feels a little like the old Hammer horror films with its amazing coincidences, twisted logic and gapping plot holes. Visually it is pretty good and the pacing is okay except for the very drawn out ending. All in all it is probably a pretty good B movie but it is just so lame. There is no nudity, what little violence there is is implied and tends to happen off camera. Perhaps the writer or producer wanted to make a horror movie that didn't offend or scare anyone.

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