This TV adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson's novella doesn't deserve Michael Caine in the eponymous role. Although it has better production values than other TV movies I've seen, that's about all that I have to say in its favor. Otherwise, it's yet another adaptation to add a romance to a story that had none; in this case, an affair with his late-wife's sister, who is married to another man. On top of this, Dr. Jekyll is given a personal, as well as a professional, feud with Dr. Lanyon, the father of Jekyll's lover here. It's part of the only theme the movie seems to understand about the book, which is the scientific cautionary tale. Despite all of the drugs Caine's Jekyll/Hyde takes, it doesn't seem to grasp the obvious allusion to drug addiction. Despite the rapes, it doesn't seem to get that Hyde is Jekyll's doppelgänger, exercising perversities that were always within him. Nope, he's just a scientist who was too curious. How bland. There's also an awful framing narrative added with Mr. Utterson, the main narrator in the novel.
In this one, Hyde is a super-strong bald and ugly deformed creature whose body bubbles during transformations, which here are mostly accomplished via editing for makeup changes and practical effects for the inflating skin.
In this one, Hyde is a super-strong bald and ugly deformed creature whose body bubbles during transformations, which here are mostly accomplished via editing for makeup changes and practical effects for the inflating skin.