Movies.ie favourite Michael Cera stars in this geek meets girl film Youth In Revolt, release this Friday. Cera plays Nick Twisp, a geeky outsider who falls for a girl that's hugely out of his league (Sheeni, played by Portia Doubleday). What makes this story different is that instead of using sheer persistence to get the girl, Twisp adopts a super-cool alter ego called Francois Dillinger. His transformation may be about as convincing as Clark Kent's but he certainly gives him a whole new attitude and soon gets him in trouble with the law.
With this in mind let's count down the top ten movie alter-egos! (Spolier alert!)
Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde - Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
The most famous story of split personality is Robert Louis Stevenson's strange case of the respectable physician with the homicidal double life. Dr. Jekyll by day experiments with new drugs, obsessed by the idea that inside every man lives a beast; which turns out to be the case exactly! As the sun goes down, Hyde turns into the fiendish Dr. Jekyll - bestial, violent and out for trouble. The story has made it to both the small and big screens many times but our favourite is Rouben Mamoulian's 1931 version starring Fredric March.
Jack/Tyler - Fight Club
In 1996, Chuck Palahniuk came up with a modern retelling of the Jekyll and Hyde parable in his novel Fight Club (adapted into film by David Fincher). This time the Dr. Jekyll character is an office drone called Jack (Ed Norton); alienated by the modern world, he fills his life with "stuff" and can only connect with people that he meets at disease support groups. Jack ciphons off all his frustrations and the things he wishes he had the guts to do into his alter-ego, Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt), who is cool, masculine and ultimately deranged.
Superman/Clark Kent - Superman
The alter-ego is a must have for any self-respecting superhero, which brings us to a problem; if we included them all we'd be here all day! Still we couldn't forget about good old Clark Kent, the meek and mild journalist alter-ego of Superman (who is himself an alter-ego of Kal-El...it's all very complicated!). Sure Batman and Spiderman can remain anonymous through the use of clever masks but Superman only has to change his hairdo and don a pair of specs to become unrecognisable as Kent!
Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader - Star Wars Series
Superheroes love the old alter-ego trick but it's also useful for the villains. While the heroes use them for issues of practicality, villains often adopt an alter-ego to forget about the good person they once were and go full time into villainy. This is exactly what happened to poor old Anakin Skywalker, who started off hero but became the mask wearing slave to the Dark Side thanks to a tricksy manoeuvre by Emperor Palpatine. Having betrayed the Jedi he got a full body leather suit and a breathing condition for his trouble.
Tom Riddle/Lord Voldemort - Harry Potter Series
Speaking of villainous alter-ego's, at number five we have the ultimate Harry Potter bad guy, the evil Lord Voldemort (AKA "He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, AKA The Dark Lord). Voldemort (Ralph Fiennes) started life as the rather more inauspiciously named Tom Riddle - clearly not dynamic enough to compliment his evil doings. For Riddle did indeed turn very evil indeed; setting out to conquer not only the wizardy world but also that of the muggles as the evil, nasally challenged Lord Voldemort!