Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (2002)

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General		Extras
Category	Thriller	None
Rating
Year Of Production	2002
Running Time	96:50
RSDL / Flipper	RSDL (64:42)	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Language Select Then Menu
Region Coding	2,4	Directed By	Maurice Phillips
Studio Distributor	Universal Pictures Home Video	Starring	John Hannah David Warner Gerard Horan Kellie Shirley Jack Blumenau Brian Pettifer Ellie Haddington Mel Martin Elodie Kendall Ifan Meredith Tilly Vosburgh James Saxon Christopher Good
Case	?
RPI	$29.95	Music	David Ferguson

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s) French Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) Italian Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) German Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s) Spanish Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.78:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	1.78:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English for the Hearing Impaired French Italian German Spanish Portuguese Dutch	Smoking	Yes
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde must be one of the most filmed stories in the history of cinema. A search on IMDB for the word Jekyll results in 947 matches. Of these, most are films which reference Dr. Jekyll in some way or are a spin off like the Abbott & Costello one or the ones about a man changing into a woman. As far as films directly based on the original story go, I found 20 quite easily. The first version is a silent one from 1908, followed by two more versions before 1920, three more versions in 1920, starring John Barrymore, Conrad Veidt & Sheldon Lewis, then the Oscar-winning 1931 version with Fredric March, the 1941 Spencer Tracy version and then on through Jack Palance, Anthony Perkins, Kirk Douglas, David Hemmings, Michael Caine and many more. In addition there have been two musical versions (one starring David Hasselhoff!), a Tom & Jerry version and even a Hong Kong Martial Arts film version! This one is one of two versions made in 2002 and was made for television, presumably in England. There is yet another one currently in production in Canada which would seem to be a teen version based upon the stars.

    So what? Well, it begs the question as to whether another version is really necessary and whether it does anything different with the basic story. The answer to my mind is no, we didn't really need another version and even if we did, it's not this one.

    To be fair, there are some differences in the way this has been done, with the transformation being shown more as a psychological transformation rather than a physical one. Dr. Jekyll (John Hannah) does not become a hideous monster, he really just changes clothes and becomes a psychopath.

    The story, for those not already aware of it, is set in Victorian England (filmed in modern day Lithuania) and revolves around the titular character, Dr Jekyll and his evil alter-ego, Mr. Hyde. Jekyll is an eminent Doctor who has been experimenting with using drugs to split the human personality into its good and evil parts. He wants to do this so that he can eliminate the evil part. He asks the hospital which supports his research to allow him to experiment on a human patient - they are horrified and completely withdraw their funding. He is able to continue working with the support of a benefactor, local politician Sir Danvers Carew (David Warner). A human subject which he arranges to be provided by the local asylum commits suicide and Jekyll decides to experiment on himself, deciding to use the dead man's name as a cover, acting as if he lives in the house. The name of the dead man is Mr Edward Hyde. Other important characters include Sarah, Sir Danvers' daughter (Elodie Kendall) and Jekyll's household staff, Poole, the butler (Brian Pettifer), Mrs Bradley, the housekeeper (Ellie Haddington), Ned, the houseboy (Jack Blumenau) and the new housemaid, Mabel (Kellie Shirley). As you can probably guess, the experiments Jekyll conducts on himself do not necessarily result in what he was looking for.

    I did not find this production particularly engaging, and I didn't particularly like John Hannah's performance as the doctor. This surprised me because he is an actor whose work I enjoy, and the main reason why I chose to review this disc. I really can't give you any compelling reasons to see this film, but by the same token there is nothing terribly wrong with it either. If you love the story this is one of the few versions available on DVD in Region 4, however, I believe the 1931 & 1941 versions will soon be released on one disc, which is probably worth waiting for.

Video

    The video quality is good but not spectacular.

    The feature is presented in a 1.78:1 aspect ratio 16x9 enhanced which is the original aspect ratio.

    The picture was reasonably clear and sharp throughout, with no evidence of low level noise, although the sharpness was not as good as other films of this recent vintage. There was light grain in some scenes. The shadow detail was nothing special and sometimes the night scenes were a little hard to decipher. Having said that, it wasn't terrible either.

    The colour was generally good but probably due to the dark colour palette did not really catch the eye.

    Artefacts were very minimal in this transfer with only one spot of aliasing at 81:25 on a bird cage and some very minor jagged edges from time to time. There were also some very occasional and tiny white specks.

    There are subtitles in 7 languages including English for the hearing impaired. The English subtitles were clear, easy to read but a little on the small side.

    The layer change occurs at 64:42 and causes a noticeable pause.
    

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    The audio quality is very good.

    This DVD contains five audio options, an English Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack encoded at 448 Kb/s and the same in German plus Dolby Digital 2.0 soundtracks in French, Spanish & Italian encoded at 192 Kb/s.

    Dialogue was clear and easy to understand and there was no problem with audio sync.

    The score of this film by David Ferguson was pretty good but slightly anonymous.

    The surround speakers did occasionally add some atmosphere and a small number of mild directional effects.

    The subwoofer was used regularly to add creepy rumblings to the soundtrack and bass to the music.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

Menu

    The menu included a still for the film and a scene selection function. Strangely it did not include any text at all, only symbols indicating the selections. This may be confusing unless you are very conversant with DVD menu systems.

    This film is available in the same format in Region 2 and not currently available in Region 1.

    The video quality is good.

    The audio quality is very good.

    The disc has no extras.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall