Young Sherlock Holmes

Amazon.com

This 1985 adventure directed by Barry Levinson (Rain Man) and written by Chris Columbus (Gremlins) may not have much to do with the Sherlock Holmes of Arthur Conan Doyle's invention. But it is a delightful and somewhat unexpected combination of exciting elements: Victorian-era, foggy-London mystique, Gothic horror, and Indiana Jones-like exotica. Nicholas Rowe plays Holmes as a schoolboy at a boarding academy for young men. Paired with the owlish, reticent young Watson (Alan Cox), Holmes embarks on the solution of a mystery that involves a hallucinatory and lethal drug, and a religious cult celebrating ancient Egyptian rites of mummification. Levinson makes handsome and crisp work of this Steven Spielberg production, without a trace of the treacle that often found its way into other Spielbergian projects at the time (The Goonies). Rowe is wonderfully convincing as a teen incarnation of the Great Detective, and while Cox mostly maintains Hollywood's traditionally unflattering idea of Watson, he does bring warmth and comedy to the role. The cast includes Freddie Jones as an eccentric inventor, Anthony Higgins as the villain, and Sophie Ward as Holmes's love interest. --Tom Keogh

Customer Reviews:

Action, adventure, suspense -- not a kid's movie........2007-08-16

I remember seeing this movie a looong time ago when it first came out. I think I actually appreciate and enjoy it more now than I did back when.

Do not be confused -- this isn't a kid's movie per-se. There are some rather scary parts to this movie, and there is a good deal of violence, though none of it is what I would call overly graphic.

The acting is well done, the settings are quaint and fit the storyline well, and when you combine that with a great musical score and a rather intriguing plot, you have what I consider to be a FANTASTIC movie.

Young Sherlock Holmes.......2007-08-09

I've always wanted a copy of this movie after seeing it in a theatre in the 80s. Although it strays from the canon by Sir A. Conan Doyle, it is done so with respect. The story is engaging, and the special effects are wonderfully done. This is one that a person with even the slightest interest in Sherlock Holmes will enjoy.

Flawed Directing Ruins Drama.......2007-06-30

Since Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson meet each other for the first time as adults in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's "The Sign of the Four", the story in this movie is distinctly extra-canonical. And yet, aside from that one minor continuity glitch, everything else in this movie lines up very well with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's stories. If the first few chapters of "The Sign of the Four" can be temporarily forgotten (or ret-conned, as us comic book fans say) the story in the movie not only works well with the rest of Sherlock Holmes continuity, but helps to explain a lot of things Conan Doyle never got around to explaining, such as the origin of Holmes's distinctive deer-stalker cap, coat, and pipe, the beginnings of Holmes's relationship with Inspector Lestrade, the origins of Moriarity and his rivalry with Holmes, and finally the reason Holmes has maintained a distance from women all his adult life.
This last reason, the death of a true love, turns out to be remarkably similar to the reason Ian Fleming gives for James Bond inability to stay monogamous, but since Ian Fleming was inspired by the Fu-Manchu series, which in turn was inspired by Sherlock Holmes, I suppose its not altogether inappropriate that the characters share this link.

The story in this movie, about an Egyptian cult of the dead in an underground temple, is at points very similar to "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom", particularly a scene with a human sacrifice, lots of chanting, and the young heroes looking on horrified from their hiding place. I'm going to have to double check the dates, but I suspect this movie came out after "Temple of Doom" and was trying to cash in on the Indiana Jones adventure craze.

Again, this is not entirely inappropriate, since Indiana Jones was based partly on the adventure movies of the 30s, which in turn were based off of stories like "Sherlock Holmes" and "Fu-Manchu". In fact the real sin is not that they attempted to rip Indiana Jones off, but that they failed so horribly in doing so.

Which brings me to the flaws of this film...
I'm told this film has been criticized because the story involves Holmes and Watson more or less stumbling onto the bad guys, instead of using Holmes characteristic deductive reasoning. However some of Conan Doyle's original stories also follow this pattern, so I don't hold that against the film. Also in the movie, like Conan Doyle's stories, Holmes does not share all of his information with Watson at the time, but only once the case is all over does he reveal how he solved it.

Unfortunately in the movie the viewer gets to see some of the assassinations in the film, and thus has more information than Holmes does, which is unfortunate and takes away from the suspense a little bit. Also the victims are shot with a poison dart which causes them to hallucinate, and (again unfortunately) we the viewer have to sit through these hallucinations, which I suspect were just an excuse to cram some Hollywood special effects into this movie and make it more marketable.

Really, sometimes you have to wonder what in the world Hollywood is thinking. I don't know a single person who likes those weird dream/ Hallucination sequences (unless watching them while high), and yet Hollywood films are often full of them.

Also the directing in this film is terrible. None of the action sequences are choreographed with any sort of suspense, and most of the physical action in this movie doesn't make any sense at all. Examples:
- --the heroine is abducted by the bad guy, and she appears to run off with him without making any effort to resist whatsoever.
- --The bad guys with swords are the clumsiest bad guys ever, and can't seem to hit Holmes or Watson, even though the latter two are making what look like only lazy efforts to get away.
- --A character gets knocked into the ice water, and sinks way too quickly.
---A crash landing, which should have been a dramatic sequence, is almost boring. I could go on and on.

Verdict: Worth watching for Sherlock Holmes fans or 80s nostalgia, but there are good reasons why this film never became a classic.

Far fetched story line.......2007-05-16

I have realized that every spin off of Sherlock Holmes disappoints me greatly (I am an ardent fan of the BBC series with Jeremy Brett as Holmes).
I do not intend to spoil the plot and hence I shall write no more about the mystery.
On the bright side, they have tried hard to do justice to Sherlock Holmes whimpsies, e.g, fencing, the hat, existence of Mycroft et al.
This one simply adds to my big fat collection of Sherlock Holmes DVDs. I wont dispose of it, but I wont be watching it for the second time either.

Wish there were sequels........2007-05-14

I enjoyed this movie so much I wish there were sequels. It's Harry Potter without magic.

Murder At the Baskervilles + Young and Innocent

Average customer rating:

Murder At the Baskervilles + Young and Innocent

Manufacturer: East West Entertainment
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

2 Feature Films

ASIN: B000KQIBAA

Product Description

Two movies on one DVD. In MURDER AT THE BASKERVILLES Sherlock Holmes vacation is cut short when suddenly finds himself in the middle of a double murder mystery. In YOUNG & INNOCENT (directed by Alfred Hitchcock) a man on the run from a murder charge enlists a beautiful stranger who must put herself at risk for his cause.

Average customer rating:

Action, adventure, suspense -- not a kid's movie.
Young Sherlock Holmes
Flawed Directing Ruins Drama
Far fetched story line
Wish there were sequels.

Young Sherlock Holmes [Region 2]
Starring: Nicholas Rowe , Alan Cox , Sophie Ward , Anthony Higgins , and Susan Fleetwood
Director: Barry Levinson
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

( Y ) | Titles | Features | DVD | Video

ASIN: B000163WT4