When I walked into the peaceful English classroom the past three days i expected to see a classic horror movie and that’s exactly what i got.

Movie

Negatives

  • Even though the movie is toned down quite a lot due to vulgar and atrocious things, I still find it corny and not to be as serious as the novella intended it to be.
  • Though the director Stevenson started the movie in chapter 10, because of not being able to fit the whole story line together he made it quite different from the novella.
  • Transitions through the scenes were confusing to understand due to sometimes not knowing when Jekyll was Hyde and when he wasn’t.
  • Instead of people knowing about his experiments with the good and the bad he was open about them. This gave up some suspense to how crazy Dr. Jekyll really was.
 Positives

  • The music while Jekyll is writing the letter to his dear Beatrice gives the scene and movie a sense urgency and importance.
  • Stevenson put all the victims Mr. Hyde hurt into the girl he “saved.” This makes the movie focus on how much Mr. Hyde hurt the victims by showing them in one.
  • He made it obvious when Dr. Jekyll changed into Mr. Hyde.
  • Full-end circle of the plot from when he started his experiments to when he died from doing his experiments.
  • The director represented the true “crazy man”
  • Jekyll/Hyde’s love interest are shown strongly throughout the movie.

Overall: The movie did tie well with the novella. It had all the main events the novella incorporate. Even though Stevenson did change the movie quite a bit from the novella he did a good job tying it all together. For example, instead of Dr. Jekyll keeping the experiments a secret he told the whole dinner party. This helped the movie develop faster and help people that have not read the novella. Even though he didn’t use all the victims he still made a strong case of how Hyde was a mad man. The love interest, Beatrice, was also a great plus to the movie that the novella didn’t have. It showed how much a person can do to another person in just a short amount of time. The movie also made it easier to understand the novella, if you read it before watching the movie. It showed the craziness one man that seemed okay, could have. Overall the movie represented the novella quite well, and even though some parts were raunchy it still lived up to the classic novella.