Jekyll & Hyde – Together Again (1982/Legend Films DVD)

 

Picture: C     Sound: C+     Extras: D     Film: D

 

 

The most confused adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson’s Dr. Jekyll & Mr Hyde, Jekyll & Hyde – Together Again (1982) admits it knows it is bad, but that cannot save it from being the film that killed the famous book on the big screen for decades to come.  The doctor (Mark Blankfield of the failed Saturday Night Live knock-off Fridays) finds a formula that turns him from a dork (read white) to a party animal (read black and Hispanic in a sort of black/brown face Al Pacino would make famous a year later in Brian De Palma’s Scarface remake) including the desire to boogie and shove his butt in the face of others Eminem-style.

 

An early Joel Silver production (with the also successful producer Laurence Gordon) the film is hoping to ape Airplane! and other counterculture comedies, but it has too many potential ideas and follows none of them.  This is what Paramount did with Jerry Lewis’ The Nutty Professor before Eddie Murphy found a way to make it a hit, but this is far more politically incorrect and stupid than most Murphy films of late.  Even Horror fans skip this one.

 

The anamorphically enhanced 1.85 X 1 image is soft, with problematic color and poor detail, while the Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono is a little better; even Barry DeVorzon’s score has nowhere to go.  There are no extras.

 

 

-   Nicholas Sheffo