Silly sub plots and boring padding let it down
This is flawed to buggery by two things;
One; the utterly pointless, achingly tedious, romantic plot between Caine's Abberline and Jane Seymour. Seymour may be yummy, but her unneeded character really slows the film up.
Two; The awful psychic subplot and wacky actor angle.
The psychic stuff is amped up to silly degrees and (as the black orbs in "From Hell") is played as some supernatural fact. And it's nothing but an annoying distraction at best.
And why they had this actor suspect's face literally bubble (via much bladder FX work) when on stage as he supposedly turns into a killer is a mystery indeed!
How on God's earth can a Victorian actor, live on stage, do this? Worse it's not even explained away AS an, impossible to achieve while on a Victorian stage, effect...it's treated as if he really can make his face change like this!!
Madness!
And again just another (as with Seymour and the psychic angle) saggy sub-plot of no baring that bloats the thing.
The actual Ripper stuff is okay but overly sanitised and at least the cast is a fine one.
But all of these silly Royal angles have been well and truly revealed as hokum, so there is not much here at all sadly.
And why they thought having the killer go around in a coach marked with a huge royal crest is anyone's guess!
www.beardyfreak.com