The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (2006) Reviews

• Wow... Just Wow...

  odupoptart2006-09-29

  I'm not going into the story, as I'm sure most people are familiar with the story of Dr. Jeckyll & Mr. Hyde already, so I'm just gonna go with the technical aspects. The film looked like a film school student's attempt to make a full-length feature. The actors were sub-par, the settings looked fake (I mean come on... a chief of police should have an actual OFFICE, not a CUBICLE!!), the dialog was amazingly horrible (listen to the dialog between Utterson, who is the chick detective, and the chief of police... it is so bad, it's hilarious!) and the special effects were low-quality. Mr. Hyde's make-up looked ridiculous... I think they used 2 wigs for Hyde, as in some scenes it looked black and in other scenes, it looked brown. The ending (which, as I said, I will not divulge)... well... what I will say about the ending is that it didn't tie the story up for me in a neat little package. In fact, the whole story was so jumbled up and it's obvious that the script needed at least one or two more revisions. Overall, it was confusing and it looked cheaply made. However, if you're stuck watching it with your boyfriend because he has to screen it for work, as was my case, it was a lot of fun joking the movie the whole time. But otherwise, I wouldn't pay to see this movie.

• My Review

  joemamaohio2008-07-23

  Renowned horror legend Tony Todd ("Candyman") brings to life...once again...the story of Dr. Jekyll and his monstrous alter-ego, Mr. Hyde. Only this time, it's in modern times, and he's a scientist who's working with animals to discover something (I don't remember what it was, the movie was THAT bad). The violence is extremely toned down, the storyline is so overdone that it's simply boring, and the ending (SPOILER): Jekyll turns into Hyde...and then turns into a giant monkey-man. Once again, I feel that Robert Louis Stevenson is rolling over in his grave.

• Terrible abuse of good actors

  JoeB1312008-06-23

  Well, we all know the story. Kindly scientist takes a drug that turns him into a debauched killer. Been done a hundred times and there was no real good reason to do it again. Tony Todd and Tracy Scoggins are good actors, but they are really abused here. Note to Ms. Scoggins. You are a mature, accomplished actress. You can stop taking these roles that should be going to 20 year-olds. Todd fares little better. He seems to really be having fun doing the scenes as Hyde. His Jekyll seems to be subdued and not really into it. Much of the plot seems contrived, especially the parts to get Jekyll/Hyde into the costume that we'd traditionally expect to see Mr. Hyde in. I don't even want to go into the ending, where Todd converts into an ape and becomes bulletproof.

• Innovative, creative and .....Lame

  Nprnuno2008-05-24

  The immortal story of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde gets an update as we so often see with so many classics. The movie is a low budget adaption of the story that most of us are so familiar, either by other films, theater or the novel itself. Within the first few minutes, viewers are introduced to eeriness, horror and gore......Suspense has been built, and you simply got a taste of the horror to come; It can only get better. Right? Well, not quite. Tony Todd plays the dual role of Jekyll/Hyde and my respect for such a talented actor made me refrain from shutting this movie off early. Disregarding the low budget appearance of some scenes and it's questionable dialog throughout, it's still difficult to enjoy this horror film. Some of the biggest problems I had with this remake, was the horrendous job on Mr. Hyde's makeup. In some scenes, Mr. Hyde looks so fake you almost anticipate and imagine Tony Todd taking off his mask. I haven't seen such terrible makeup work, since The Howling 3 and the Wishmaster's sequels. The tag-line for this film is "Release the Beast".....Well, if you somehow enjoy this film up to it's conclusion, than maybe you can make better sense of the word "Beast" being used better than I did. Tony Todd's acting isn't that bad but it can't save this overall bad film. Another veteran in this film, is Vernon Wells; you remember the infamous Bennet villain from Commando? If you do, you will shake your head in disbelief as to how irrelevant his Dr. Dennis Lanyon character is in this. This update is creative and a twist to the original story. It starts with suspense and gore........It has decent Tony Todd acting.......but as it goes on, it gets closer to mediocrity. In my opinion, this movie failed miserably to capitalize on the excitement and suspense it introduced in the opening sequences. I rate this movie 2 out of 10. For Tony Todd's attempt to save this, and the creative retelling of a timeless classic story.

• Todd is Great

  Michael_Elliott2008-07-14

  Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, The (2006) ** (out of 4) John Carl Buechler (Friday the 13th 7) wrote and directed this updated version of Robert Louis Stevenson's classic novel. In the film, Dr. Jekyll (Tony Todd) is experimenting with chimps when he decides to take the drug himself, which of course turns him into the murderous Mr. Hyde. If it weren't for the excellent performance from Todd, who most people will remember from Candyman, this movie would have been a lot worse. These types of horror movies are made each and every week but not all of them feature some a great performance so it's rather sad to see Todd wasted in a pretty weak film with an even weaker screenplay. There are a few switches from the original novel but for the most part this film is pretty faithful and since we've seen this story countless times the original aspects here aren't good enough to keep the film moving. The supporting cast are all pretty bland to bad and this really sticks out when you see them acting with Todd. Buechler's direction is a tad bit all over the place as well. It's never quite clear what he's trying to do with the material even though he wrote it. At some points it seems like he's wanting to make a suspenseful story but then at other times it appears he wants to throw tons of gore at us. Another problem with the film is the use of some bad, fast editing and poor CGI effects. Back to Todd, he alone makes it worth watching the film as he pulls off both roles very well. Like Christopher Lee, I think Todd could branch out into more serious roles but most of the time he's wasted in films like this.