"Dr. Jekyll & Ms. Hyde" is one of those movies that gives it all away in the title. You could write this one yourself — and your version would be funnier.
Tim Daly is Dr. Richard Jacks, a modern-day scientist working for a perfume company. But when he inherits the diaries of his great-grandfather, and learns that his name is really Jekyll, not Jacks, he re-creates the experiments that turned great-grandad into a monster.
In this case, however, the alter-ego he unleashes is Helen Hyde, in the form of sultry Sean Young. (After "Ace Ventura, Pet Detective," Young seems to be the actress of choice for gender-bender female roles.)
Helen is also a monster, of course, though of a different form — using sexual wiles to climb the corporate ladder and gradually plotting to take over Richard's life, and his body.
The stars are game and try hard, but this is the kind of movie that thinks its biggest laughs come from seeing Tim Daly in a teddy or Sean Young with a mustache. And, sadly, the movie is right — those are the biggest laugh-getters . . . "big" being a relative term.
Vulgar, cheap and dumb, "Dr. Jekyll & Ms. Hyde" is one of the weakest of the many comedy riffs on Stevenson's story over the years ("Jekyll & Hyde . . . Together Again," "The Nutty Professor," "Abbott & Costello Meet Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde," etc.). There will be others (Eddie Murphy has a "Nutty Professor" remake in the works), and we can only hope they are better than this one.
"Dr. Jekyll & Ms. Hyde" is rated PG-13, which seems rather mild considering the amount of sex, nudity, vulgarity, profanity and violence on display.