O Médico E o Monstro

I never can figure out how turkeys like this get green-lighted by movie studios. Are they that desperate to make money?

I just wasted two hours of my life watching this giant pile of fail. It looked as if Coppola took 3 different movies: a martial arts flick, an east-west cop/buddy pic, and the Jekyll-Hyde story, and tried to stitch them all together Frankenstein-style into one movie. Add some crappy dialogue, cheesy one-liners that fail miserably and hambone acting (everyone in this movie is pretty bad, an Adam Baldwin chews the scenery like a beaver on crack) and the result is a confused, unappealing mess.

Don't waste your time like I did. Watch a good movie instead.

This is the loosest adaptation of anything I've ever seen. In fact, loose doesn't even begin to describe it. What Sci-Fi has done is taken the title of the Robert Louis Stevenson's novella in order to draw viewers in, and nothing else.

The TV movie follows Dr. Henry Jekyll, now a Beverly Hills plastic surgeon. The entire supporting cast of Stevenson's story, even in name, is nonexistent. Jekyll travels to China with his new bride for a honeymoon. There he encounters Chinese mobsters who maim the doctor, kill his wife, and leave him for revenge.

Up to this point, the movie had potential. An action-adventure vigilante retelling of "The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" might have been worth seeing. Unfortunately, the movie never even tries to live up to its source material. Dr. Jekyll apprentices himself to a local medicine man and studies martial arts under the name "Edward Hyde." It looks like Sci-Fi had to throw both of those names in there somewhere in order to keep the title. Eventually, in the final third of the movie, Dr. Jekyll does make a medicine that gives him glowing eyes, sharp teeth, and a killer edge. But Stevenson's theme of the struggle between good and evil inside of every man is unexplored. If Sci-Fi was going to take the title, they should have at the very least tried to stay true to the theme. Under the influence of the medicine, Dr. Jekyll is aware, even more aware, of what he is doing. Mr. Hyde is all alias, no altar ego.

The acting performances are solid, but the movie is hard to enjoy when it begs to be compared to its classic source material. Before the halfway point of the movie, the "Based on the book by Robert Louis Stevenson" in the credits seems like a bold-faced lie. If you enjoy American-in-China-kung-fu-action movies, and you have nothing better to watch, try this on for size. If you're looking for an adaptation of "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde", avoid this, or you'll be sorely disappointed.

Perhaps this was a pilot for a TV series? The ending was left wide open for a sequel; it was an incredibly abrupt ending (not saying more so as not to spoil).

It was entertaining, but not great. The connection to the original story is pretty slight, but I enjoyed the new twist on it.

I finally saw Coppola's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (2000). Really, he was the Exec. Producer, but was running through his mind when he oversaw this film? This seems to be a pilot for TV series starring the underrated Adam Baldwin. Dr. Henry Jekyll is a plastic surgeon who goes to China for a honeymoon. While checking out a hospital, he is unwittingly forced to operate on a dying Triad member. The Triad dies, and the rest of the gang wants vengeance. They kidnap Jekyll's wife, and after stealing a kidney from Jekyll allow him to be with his wife before they die. Well as expected, Jekyll lives and is mentored by a doctor who introduces him to ancient Chinese herbs- especially those that can kill. Jekyll changes his name to Hyde, and goes on a vengeance spree against members of the Triad using Karate, Kung Fu and the herbs. I'm not making this up! Plot twist is that Henry Jekyll is the chosen White Tiger where it is written he is to protect the good Chinese people..... Aw Hell Pass!

When it comes to interpreting classic horror novels to the silver screen, Francis Ford Coppola is a funny one. Having already directed "Bram Stoker's Dracula" (a bad film) and co-produced "Mary Shelley's Frankenstein" (a good film), it seems only natural that he would try his luck with a version of Robert Louis Stevenson's "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde." Unfortunately, the only thing you'll find in common with Stevenson's mini-novel and this film is the title.

One can only imagine how this funny little film got into production. Coppola must have never even read the script. I imagine his agent gave him a call and said, "Hey, they need an executive producer for another Jekyll and Hyde picture. You've already done Dracula and Frankenstein. Another wouldn't hurt...we could sell them in a three-in-one DVD pack, because we're clever Hollywood marketers. What do you say?" Well, someone got fired over this deal, and I have a feeling that it was Coppola's agent (and quite possibly Adam Baldwin's as well).

Adam Baldwin, judging from his previous work (thankless but well-acted roles in "Independence Day" and "The Patriot"), was an ideal choice to play a young, charismatic Dr. Jekyll in Victorian London. Instead, this treatment gives us a Henry Jekyll who adopts a martial-artist crime fighter secret identity as Mr. Hyde, a being he mutates into (think the Incredible Hulk) after being revived from the dead by a mysterious herb while vacationing with his wife in Hong Kong. He then seeks out to avenge the death of his wife by transforming into Mr. Hyde, kind of like a really ugly caped crusader. Oh yeah, and I forgot to mention that he is the prophesized "White Dragon" or something to that effect, destined to save the world, yadda yadda yadda.

The makers have taken what would have been a mediocre martial artist movie and made it worse by adding the Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde theme, and loosly at that. My question is, who put this thing together? Judging from its low production values, I can only assume that it was originally a made-for-tv, would-be television pilot in the tradition of "Invisible Man," and, when it didn't find a distributor, was dumped on video as a feature film for the sake of Coppola's name. While some of the martial-arist fighting is indeed quite nice, for a cheap production like this, and Adam Baldwin shows potential as a would-be Jekyll and Hyde, I cannot recommend this film on any level. Gothic horror fans will find no Gothic horror, and martial artist fans won't find anything that hasn't already been done better.

To be fair, however, Coppola's previous efforts at Gothic horror have featured deceiving titles: "Bram Stoker's Dracula" had little to do with the Bram Stoker's novel, and "Mary Shelley's Frankenstein" was more an effective homage to it than a literal interpretation. At least he successfully leaves the "Robert Louis Stevenson" out of the title (it might be because he is tired of Stoker's ghost haunting him and he'd rather not take his chances).

Final verdict: C-

*1/2 out of ****