Doctor Jekyll

The traditional story of Doctor Jekyll and Mr Hyde given a modern spin, starting Eddie Izzard.

I was really excited about seeing it, and keen to see what Izzard was going to inject into the role. The result, was sadly underwhelming. I liked the start, but it just became dull and a little boring at times, I didn't care for the ending.

I thought the cinema would have been packed out for this on the opening weekend, there were four of us, that should have been enough.

I was really hoping for a dark, gothic horror, what it turned out to be was a fairly lame comedy, with horror elements here and there. I didn't care much for Izzard's character, just irritating more than anything.

It was hard at times to work out which was Jekyll and which was Hyde, they could have gone a lot further.

Acting wise, Izzard was alright, I can't say there was anything particularly good, the quality I thought, came from Lindsay Duncan.

Watchable enough, but very disappointed.

5/10.

A well-crafted picture from director Joe Stephenson and writer Dan Kelly-Mulhern with Eddie Izzard, Scott Chambers and Lindsay Duncan selling the intriguing premise at the top of the card.

Certain aspects fall flat far from where they could reach and the ending comes around in too much haste, but when it comes to selling itself, Doctor Jekyll does exactly what it says on the tin.

I's an elegantly-shot picture with a terrific central location, solid performances, a strong score, plenty of keen enthusiasm and ideas to distinguish it from the pack of dime-a-dozen adaptations.

If you go in expecting jump-scares and screaming histrionics you may be disappointed, but if you're looking for a spooky, mysterious and atmospheric genre feature then this'll certainly tick your boxes.

Having just been released from prison, a former inmate takes a job looking after the estate of a disgraced cosmetics mogul while they're out of town, but when he begins to suspect something is wrong with her realizes the deadly truth about her condition and must try to save himself from the threat.

This was a generally fun and enjoyable effort. Among its greater facets is the endearing psychological building that attempts to take a rather unusual approach to the formulaic material. Instead of offering more of a look at the creation of the fabled potion, the onus here is more on the use of the differing personalities coming to the forefront without much knowledge or warning of who they're dealing with. The constant mood swings, the various instructions that are given out only to be ignored or contradicted moments later, and enough quips make for a generally uneasy time the longer he's there. Since there's a massive amount of doubt established as the root cause of the whole switching back and forth about her various personalities and he's given an extremely motivated reasoning to stay, this becomes worthwhile enough to give this a great starting point. That lets the second half come into more overt physical threats, which is a nice change of pace as it leads nicely into the finale. With the exploits firmly established as being more in line with a dangerous procedure from the past that comes into pass more than a rather comically underexplained attempt at saying the chemical imbalance she has is responsible, there's a fine touch here to present a more overt physical explanation for everything that comes alongside the secondary storyline about the ex-girlfriend trying to score money from him to screw his life over. As none of this is explained but still goes about trying to accomplish that with a daring robbery attempt that goes south when the true nature of what's going on is revealed, there's a nice bit of action here that's immensely fun and provides the film with a fun finale full of action and several twists to have a lot to like about it. There are some minor issues here that hold this back. The main aspect of this one bringing it down is the rather underwhelming pacing that takes quite a lot of time to get going as the emphasis on more cerebral and psychological factors means very little happens. With his duties at the house and the mood swings or other bizarre outbursts taking up the majority of the time, there's a rather sluggish tempo on display here waiting around for the inevitable. What makes it even worse is the fact that this could've been used to do something beyond repeatedly going back to the same well of mood swings blamed on a chemical imbalance rather than trying to bring up the idea of the different characters inhabiting her personality since all the figures here are based on this explanation rather than go for the more logical one that would add a terrifying outcome. With a lame coda on the finale that gives this a wholly unnecessary finale with a silly tone that ends on a sour note, these features are the ones that hold this one down.

Rated Unrated/R: Graphic Language and Violence.

This one is a low-end pseudo-horror flick that will have the Hammer founders revolving in their graves. The quality of this is many miles away from the iconic Hammer productions of old.

This one is a shoe-string budget movie with an interesting premise (although it is many miles removed from the original story and its undepinnings: the "Hyde" personality here is more of a curse that can be passed onto another person, instead of the animal-self gaining hold of the individual who takes the "medicine". This is a major departure from the original story, which was completely sci-fi - this new take is the opposite of sci-fi: it's suppernaturalistic mumbo-jumbo).

What saves this flick from total disaster is that the 2 lead actors do a pretty decent job, and that the editor has manajed to pull a cut that's half-decently paced.

Everything else reeks of 3rd-tier, amateurish wannabe-ism. You will never see any of the other perople in the cast in any movie or series anytime soon. (if you're lucky)

While those audience members expecting full-blown Gothic horror may be disappointed, older viewers who remember the Hammer studio's psychological thrillers, particularly Fear in the Night, Fanatic, Crescendo and Paranoiac, may feel more well-disposed to this thrilling film.

This film niftily straddles the Gothic horrors of Terence Fisher and the studio's so-called mini-Hitchcocks from the likes of Freddie Francis and Val Guest. The latter films often took place in enclosed setting and have a claustrophobic feel, and either sculptured b/w or highly stylised colour photography, and this film neatly reflects that style, while the music score delivers the required feel.

Izzard gives a great performance that rivals the scenery-chewing performances of the stars of Hammer's previous grands guinols, Bette Davis, Tallulah Bankhead and Margaurite Scott.

Yes, there are a few plot flaws, and yes, the dénoûment is signalled at the start, but unlike the previous attemps to reboot Hammer, this feels right and not like an Amicus spin-off, so let's be thankful for this effort and enjoy it.