Young Sherlock Holmes (1985)

Best movie of this year hands down!

The Worst Film Ever

I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

Fresh and Exciting

Despite remembering this film being released as a mid teenager in 1986 I never saw it until it showed up on tv just recently, a third of a century later. Out of curiosity I finally watched it and was ever so slightly disappointed with it and here is why.I think primarily the problem is the script and the screenplay. There is a great concept here, and I think the intention was to create a franchise. Alan Cox and Nicholas Rowe are both fine in their roles but Sophie Ward's character is given little to do other than to be Sherlock's romantic interest. And whereas Raiders of the Lost Ark and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (which this film is trying to capture the feel of) had memorable action set pieces and humour galore, this film lacks both. Barry Levinson is a fine director and although this film isn't a bad one, it feels strangely subdued and predictable in comparison.The film did have high production values for it's time, even if it looks ever so slightly dated now. It had one of the earliest CGI scenes ever which must have looked great at the time but other than that the film doesn't really have many surprises for the audience and you can just feel how the story will unfold.Therefore, I think this film will be fine either as a nostalgia trip or to 12 year olds but it wasn't quite the film I was expecting it to be.

John Watson is the new kid in London's Brompton Academy. He befriends brilliant student Sherlock Holmes. Elizabeth Hardy is Holmes' girlfriend. Her uncle Rupert T. Waxflatter is the retired schoolmaster and a quirky inventor with a flying machine. Professor Rathe is Holmes' mentor. Dudley is Holmes' rival. Holmes suspects a connection between a couple of mysterious suicides from the newspapers but police Sgt. Lestrade dismisses the teens. The series of murders lead to hallucinogenic blow darts and an Egyptian cult in the middle of London.I like the kids playing the iconic roles. I like the young Sherlock solving little mystery around the school. I love the search for the trophy. It's a fun time. It goes overboard with a wild action adventure. It doesn't feel very Sherlock-like, especially for young Sherlock. It reminds me of Spielberg's Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. It's fine but the big, wild story overwhelms the story in the school. It would have been more interesting to solve a mystery inside the school.

A combination of writer Chris Columbus, director Barry Levinson and Executive Producer Steven Spielberg gives us Young Sherlock Holmes. A re-imagining of when Holmes and Watson met at boarding school.Columbus who went on to direct the first Harry Potter film very much had in his mind an almost prototype Harry Potter feel years before JK Rowling wrote the books!In dastardly Victorian London a young Watson arrives at boarding school and meets a brilliant student named Sherlock Holmes. However there are strange deaths going on near the school with people having frightening hallucinations before dying. Holmes sets about to investigate and uncovers a bizarre Egyptian cult and wrongdoings leading to the school itself.The film was known for some state of the art digital effects such as the stained glass knight. The plot does feel like an American take on a Sherlock Holmes story complete with a young but still bumbling and slightly chubby Watson. Its a light plot mixed with story lines from previous Spielberg films such as Indiana Jones The filmmakers want to have reverence to Conan Doyle but as the BBC series of the modern Sherlock has shown, it would had been possible to have a radical take of Young Sherlock Holmes if they had pushed the envelope a bit further and had gone for a slightly different and zippy characterisation of the two main characters.

I am a great fan of the Sherlock Holmes stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. I have also enjoyed a number of the British TV adaptations of the Holmes stories over the years, with Jeremy Brett, Douglas Wilmer and Peter Cushing in the title role. I regret to say, however, that "Young Sherlock Holmes" is simply not my cup of tea. I like my Sherlock Holmes to be presented in a traditional fashion - with foggy streets peopled by urchins and beggars, smoke-filled sitting rooms and hansom cabs. We get little of that sort of thing in this film. What we do get are seemingly expensive special effects that are quite out of keeping with the world of Holmes and Watson in a film that reminded me in places of the Indiana Jones movies, The Goonies and even Back to the Future. I suppose that's the influence of Steven Spielberg for you (he's one of the executive producers of the film)!The plot centres on Holmes's adolescent years. Much of the action takes place at an English public school known as Brompton. The film suggests that it was, in fact, here where Holmes and Watson first met, when both were pupils together and shared the same dormitory. The story concerns the investigation by the teenage Holmes of a number of seemingly unrelated murders that involve a religious cult and the use of hallucinatory drugs. It's all enjoyable enough, I suppose, if you are happy to accept the use of special effects and, given what happens in the Conan Doyle stories, a somewhat unconvincing love interest for Holmes. There is no doubt that the special effects themselves are imaginative: a roast pheasant on a restaurant diner's plate bites back; hat stands seemingly come to life; and Watson is attacked by cakes in a bizarre graveyard scene. But, as I say, they have no place in a film of this sort. The acting is good - the supporting cast is made up of a number of high quality British character actors such as Freddie Jones, Nigel Stock and Roger Ashton-Griffiths. And the direction is competent, if uninspiring. So, I give some marks to "Young Sherlock Holmes" for trying to do something slightly different. But the film just doesn't work for me. 5/10.I should add that it is important to keep watching right up to the end of the closing credits, when a nice little twist is delivered. I wonder how many of the people who saw "Young Sherlock Holmes" in the cinema missed it, given that, in my experience, many cinema-goers seem to rush for the exit almost as soon as the closing credits begin to roll!