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Rating:  -
When this Steven Spielberg produced effort came out in 1985, it came and it went fairly quickly. I missed it entirely and this is a movie that would have been right up my alley. It just goes to show that the name of Steven Spielberg doesn't always mean gold at the box office although officially the film was not directed by him it was directed Barry Levinson (RAIN MAN).
Having recently watched it for the first time, I am astonished at how much it resembles the early HARRY POTTER films. On closer examination this comes as no surprise as YOUNG SHERLOCK HOLMES was written by Chris Columbus who directed the first two Potter outings. The costumes, the photography, the settings are all strikingly similar and this has to be more than coincidence.
Fans of Sherlock Holmes should find the clever plot about mysterious murders engaging while fans of Harry Potter will find marked similarities to Harry's environment at Hogwarts and Diagon Alley. Alex Cox who plays young Watson looks just like Harry even down to the glasses. While there are certain similarities to INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM, YOUNG SHERLOCK HOLMES can stand on it's own and deserves to be better known.
Rating:  -
Long before Harry Potter and somewhere during Indiana Jones' heyday there was this quiet entry, Young Sherlock Holmes. I remember it, the coming of age story of an inquisitive young man and the naïveté of his friend as they investigate the mysteries that the adults around them ignored.
This is an old movie, at that painful cusp when computer graphics had yet to touch mainstream movies and movie making was still trying to avoid dreaded R-ratings. There is no blood, guts, gore or dismemberment; there are not fast paced montages to pander to our ADD addled attention spans. What you have here is a rather innocent, if not hokey, look at a fun story of adolescent adventure. The actors have all since faded, their performances not particularly noteworthy however the plot, the story and the idea remain a comfortable look back into how such an iconic character may have been formed.
But this movie, it's a bargain, it may not be something you watch more than a handful of times but you'll be glad you did. You'll see that one Harry Potter was not the first young boy to seek out adventure while the rest of us toiled in our busy lives.
Fun!
Rating: -
This movie was ahead of its time in terms of fantasy and elements that kids now enjoy in the form of Harry Potter books (right down to the stripped school boy scarves they wear). It's a Victorian era tale about one of the most famous pairs in literary history, Sherlock Holmes and John Watson. While there is no official tale in their history how Holmes and Watson ever met, this was a delightful set up for their possible first meeting. Having the teen element within it, it appealed to the teen audience. However, the detail and accuracy of the tale was way over a kid's head, plus the nature of the story was, now that I see it again, rather dark.
Watson transfers from his home in northern England to attend a boarding school in London, where he would meet his famous friend and companion, Holmes. They are confronted with an unusual mystery, once they are caught up in the mysterious death of a beloved eccentric professor. Soon, Holmes and Watson, as well as Holmes's love, Elizabeth, his professor's niece, are on the trail of these rather strange deaths around London, all seeming to stem from a secret from the past.
The story moved rather slowly, but it kept the viewer's interest. It was marketed somewhat to the teen set, which would trickle down to children, but the subjects are a bit over their heads. There is one comment I would like to make, of which I apologize if this is a spoiler - the scene with Watson hallucinating over the those walking gingerbread men - that was a little silly. But otherwise, a slow moving story to keep a sophisticated viewer's interest in what makes a great horror mystery.
Rating:  -
Awfully slow moving today. When it came out, it may have been a Spielberg project, a technological piece, but it definity lacks the wonder of ET or the appeal of Star Wars. The teen kids will find it rather tame, the horror scenes, not even as weird as Harry Potter.
Sherlock Holmes is best handled by the BBC. Holmes is sort of an early James Bond, almost a Union Jack superman without the need for female companionship. Hmmm?
Rating:  -
Anytime I hear about a work on Sherlock Holmes done outside of the standard canon by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle I cringe. Several attempts over and above the standard stories were very good. "The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes", "Murder by Decree" to name a few, Outstanding work within the Holmes stories were produced by Granada Television with Jeremy Brett and David Burke as the main characters. So, where do we place this interpretation by Spielberg?
Well, somewhere in between Fair to Good. The storyline is interesting, setting around the High School era of the characters,the sets are mysterious and the actors all do a good job. Even though Holmes never met Watson in his youth we are nonetheless given a reason why Holmes has a lack of emotional involvement as an older adult. Quite simply, in this movie he pours it all out into a youthful romance that ends in tragic circumstances.
Some of the special effects are fantastic. One is when a stained glass Crusader is brought to life and his two dimensional image is accurately transitioned from front to back, all with grinding glass sound effects done to perfection!
The "flying machine" reminds you of the great Leonardo in every way (I believe this was intentional) and as someone has mentioned in these reviews you MUST continue all through the ending credits to receive a bit of a surprise that portends of future adventures.
This movie is certainly "Harry Potter" in many ways and was perhaps ahead of it's time in this theme. It is a movie that should be approached as "entertainment", not to be taken seriously and as a light entry in the Holmesian quest.
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