The game is afoot, Watson!
I have always enjoyed Sherlock Holmes, even though I haven’t actually read much of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s work. I did try, but I started with A Study in Scarlet, and I came away from it baffled by Doyle’s detailed, overt and rather poisonous dislike of… Mormons, apparently. No Twilight fan he, I guess. ::shrugs::
Doyle’s issues with Mormonism aside, the adventures of Sherlock Holmes have been made and remade, and film versions I’m particularly fond of include this version of The Hound of the Baskervilles, Rupert Everett’s Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Silk Stocking and of course Robert Downey Jr.’s version. I’m also looking very forward to Sherlock: Season One.
But I came here today to tell you about Young Sherlock Holmes, the enduring favorite of all the Holmeses I’ve seen so far.
I saw it in the theater in 1985, and I had a huge crush on Holmes, with his white skin and regal profile. I was just as woogly for Watson, loyal and true, with his soft, curly upper lip. The plot involves an evil cult, revenge, betrayal and the death of everything Holmes holds dear, so hey, it has a lot going on. It was a lot scarier than I’d expected it to be when I first saw it, and even now the first three hallucination/murders are truly freaky – the stained glass swordsman was especially disconcerting. According to Wikipedia, the bloody knight was the first fully computer-generated character. Woo! Film history, babies! In fact, Young Sherlock Holmes earned an Oscar nod for visuals, and had a Grammy nominated score.
What I love best about the movie is how much love when into making it. The film itself it basically a lovely article of fanboy pastiche, a charming what-if with some interesting wrinkles: keeping podgy, custard-loving Watson stolid even in the face of death-by-pasty and taking the time to imbue Holmes with some intriguing father issues. They even manage to give Holmes a creditable reason for terminal bachelorhood: spoiler alert! He loses the cool-headed and engaging Elizabeth, the love of his life, and he pledges to meet her in the next world.
If you enjoy Victorian detective stories with catchy scores and a fresh take on a well-known literary hero, then check out Young Sherlock Holmes for a good show!
You have a limited amount of time, so why spend it reading about things that suck or are only kind of okay? Favorite thing EVER is not a review site. We're unrepentant fans, and this is the stuff we love. Hope you like gushing, because we're about to embarrass ourselves.
Oh wow, I had forgotten all about this movie. I saw it in the theaters waaaaay back when.
It was always a favorite of mine. It’s super fun!
I loved this with a love that’s true when it initially came out–thank you for taking me back!
It was a fun movie. I think I downloaded it from Amazon.
I find that the minute I want to see something so I can do an ftE on it, I can’t find it on Netflix. Then I do an ftE and it shows up as if it was waiting for me.