Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde has been done to death. If you walk into a video store and toss a rock at one of the shelves, other than the clerk yelling at you and telling you to leave, you'll most likely hit a version of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde that will cause dust clouds to form, no one cares, it'll sit and no one will watch it. Dozens of Direct to video adaptations have been made and dozens of stage version have been produced. The novel is a simple tale about a man who's split personality is given a life of his own (when you get down to brass tacks that is). With Mary Reilly you'll get what appears to be a fresh interpretation but falls rather flat. The first hour of the film is completely dull, but hopefully you wake up for the second half that has some redeeming qualities in its horror aspect with some mild gore and a one of a kind transformation that does involve some bad cg for a split second. The story comes from the point of view of a house maid (You guessed it Mary Reilly) played with an annoying Irish accent by Julia Roberts, she is in love with the good doctor for he is everything her abusive father wasn't and she also begins to pine for Mr. Hyde for his sexual deviant and forbidden qualities, following that is the step by step plot line from every other version, with the usual deviations. John Malkovich's performance is up and down, he puts his all into Hyde but falls flat everytime he's the good doctor, not much information is available online for the film, but it looks as if he gained weight for the doctor after most likely filming all his Hyde scenes. I'm getting bored out of my mind just writing the review, I'm so done with this movie.
4.5 out of 10
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