Willing Suspension of Disbelief

Movie reviews from someone who loves movies

Wednesday, November 15, 2006

Jekyll + Hyde

Plot

Drugs turn mild-mannered med student into vicious, brutal, sexually aggressive madman. He turns on his friends. He dies.

The Good

Watchability

This is yet another remake of Robert Louis Stevensons Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. The movie itself is rather watchable, but easily stopped at any point (+1) There were no obvious gaffes that interfered with the movie, yet, it felt, at times, to be a made-for-TV movie, in that the sets and set-pieces were very limited. It seems that many a low budget movie thinks that plastic strips hanging down makes a room.

Story Line

The story line is the classic morality play. There are some things man is not supposed to know and Within each man is a beast waiting to be let loose. The story doesn't dissapoint. (+1) The screenwriters attempted to add some originality. They updated it to a more modern time, where all the young folk are going to parties and taking drugs. But, more impressively, they have the central character recording his experiment on video. (+1)

Acting

Don't expect too much acting. The best to be had is with the central character. Luckily, the director had very little makeup/prosthetics done to make the change. (He does lose his glasses, grow a two-day beard, and tousle his hair.) Most of the change must come from how the actor, well, acts. Most of it is believable and engaging, but, I was hoping for more. (+1)

The Bad


There were no obvious technical issues with the film, other than the video setup. If he was recording via a video camera to tape, then the graininess of the video made sense. But, the setup is shown to use a video camera direct to a Macintosh laptop. I would expect the video to be of higher quality. In addition, the teacher immediately can start the last bit of video without even looking at the screen. (-1/2) The violent scenes are relatively well handled and add to the story line rather than detract, but, the sex scenes are gratuitous. It might add to the story that now his girlfriend enjoys sex with him because he has become sexually aggressive, and that he gets some anonymous sex before a date with said girlfriend, but I needn't be dwelt on in all its graphic detail. (-1/2)

The Ugly


+3: If you've got nothing better to do

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