Review of Young Sherlock Holmes (1985) by Anonymous User — 24 Jan 2009

There's a lot of good ideas in Barry Levinson's Holmes Jr but alas that's all the stay as, ideas...never quite managing to transfer wholly to the screen. The story involves Watson meeting Holmes for the first time at boarding school where the two of them embark on a sleuthing crusade to solve a series of grizzly murders made to look like suicides.

The murders are suitably creepy and bizarre and the look of the film is fittingly dark but it loses itself into silliness.....especially when the cakes with eyes turn up.

The plot needs a little too much suspension of disbelief and unfortunately the surprises are non-existent with every twists well forecast from the beginning of the film. There's one scene which looks as if it's been lifted straight out of Indiana Jones & the Temple of Doom.

A young Sherlock Holmes is a nice idea and may well come to pass again if interest in the character is revived by the upcoming Guy Ritchie movie but this misses strking the right chord.