HYDE

I loved the concept.  Cole Haddon has come up with a fantastic idea.  Dr. Jekyll is still alive, held prisoner in a dungeon beneath Scotland Yards.  The police are stymied by an vicious serial killer named  Jack the Ripper and must seek out Jekyll's help in order to capture him.  However, the only way Jekyll can capture the Ripper is to take his deadly serum.

Now that's a pitch!  One of the best I've ever heard.

The script is a letdown however.  Don't get me wrong, it's an enjoyable read - it just doesn't live up to that pitch.

Jekyll retains Mr. Hyde's personality.  He's Hannibal Lecter amped up on depravity.  That works.

The letdown comes from the lead character Adye.  Frankly, he's boring.  He's supposedly our moral center who learns morality is truly in the eye of the beholder.  But throughout the course of the script, he doesn't do anything significant except decide to give Jekyll his serum.  Big deal.

The script's failure also comes from not having a strong enough villain to match Hyde.  When the identity of Jack the Ripper is finally revealed, we no longer care.  The Ripper needs to be ten times worse than Hyde.  You don't get that sense though when all you see are the remains of his victims throughout most of the film.  The Ripper needs to be a fully realized character.  Instead of hiding his identity, let's see him in all his wickedness early on.  Witness his madness.

We've got a movie then.

This script could be great.  I especially love the coda which has a disgraced Adye reporting to his new job and told there's a new killer on the loose - the Invisible Man.