‘Doctor Jekyll’ Review: A Multiple-Personality Mystery That’s Pulled in Too Many Directions

“Always be two steps ahead,” repeatedly says Rachel Hyde, the famous alter ego of the namesake character in Hammer Studios’ “Doctor Jekyll.” The film’s director, Joe Stephenson, and his screenwriter Dan Kelly-Mulhern don’t take her advice, and it’s much to the detriment of their contemporary adaptation of the 1886 Robert Louis Stevenson novella, which can’t decide singularly what Jekyll’s transformation is a metaphor for. All volunteered options are either obvious or severely undercooked. Though Stephenson offers plenty of suitably spooky imagery, and importantly finds a more-than-game collaborator in Izzard as both the good and evil doctor, “Doctor Jekyll” is meandering and empty, an update with neither enough loyalty to

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