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Young Sherlock Holmes
Mystery Adventure / English / 1985
WHY'D I WATCH IT?
I've seen it many times, but not recently, and never reviewed it.
WHAT'D I THINK? *SPOILERS*
Pheasant and horses.
I already have a lot of nostalgia for this movie since I grew up with it on VHS so it's naturally challenging to judge it objectively with that in mind. But having not seen it in a long time I can definitely look back on it from a more critical perspective.
The most glaring thing to me is how much this movie seems to be an amalgam of Temple of Doom, which predates it, and Hook, which it predates, all three of which are Steven Spielberg movies.
Hook's climactic swordfight seems to be lifted from this movie while Temple of Doom's iconic scene where a trio of protagonists sneak up on an ancient religion's cruel secret ritual shortly before becoming their next victims almost begs for a bingo game to be made of the similarities.
In truth, Young Sherlock Holmes is a much more family-friendly Temple of Doom movie, and I say that bearing very clearly in mind how much nightmare fuel there actually is in this movie.
This movie separately reminds me of The Rescuers Down Under insofar as it's disturbing imagery is concerned, and the fact that I'm pretty confident that it unintentionally awakened some pretty concerning fetishes in children at some point.
The whole premise is simple enough; we get a voiceover narration from the perspective of Watson presenting a fan-fictionalized account of his first childhood encounter with Sherlock Holmes, initially demonstrating his abilities and gradually working an origin story into every individual piece of his iconic outfit, from hat to pipe.
The conflict here is that they school they attend is home to a mysterious """serial killer""" who kills their victims by means of a blowpipe that induces hallucinations which cause the victim to kill themselves.
Not by any direct or reliable means, just that the hallucinations scare them enough to do something reckless, like jump out a window, get themselves run over, or stab themselves... That they managed to intentionally kill anyone this way is the biggest mystery of this movie.
Anyway the hallucinations presented are pretty varied and at times wildly nightmarish. The opening scene involves a man ordering roast pheasant only for it come alive and start eating him instead. Truly a vegan dream come true, but alas it gets worse.
Watson himself, in an unnecessary stab at his character for being slightly overweight hallucinates a bakery which comes to life, restrains him, and forcefeeds themselves to him, all in graphic stop-motion animation. I guarantee someone developed some kind of vore fetish from that scene.
Most noteworthy of course, I must mention, is the Stained-Glass Knight who is credited in The Making Of Jurassic Park as the first ever fully computer generated character in a feature film.
Overall I do like this movie, the characters are appreciable enough, the main theme song and the "temple chant" are extremely memorable, honestly if you like both Temple of Doom and Hook, this a very similar experience, just with much lesser known actors.
In terms of criticisms, I can't complain too much. It is an EXTREMELY brisk movie, it's like 2 hours but it flies by very quickly, perhaps too quickly.
We get basically one scene introducing the characters, one scene demonstrating Sherlock's skills in a test of problem-solving, some very brief bullshit about him being good at fencing and getting unfairly expelled for cheating accusations, and then we're less than halfway through the movie and we're all-in on the Egyptian Cult Mystery.
The pre-established romance between him and The Damsel in Distress at least spares us the usual pain of courtship scenes, but that's really all she's there for, to be kidnapped and rescued, nothing more. Her makeup is also immaculate in every scene she's in, despite escaping a dusty pyramid burning the ground in which she was nearly mummified and and boiled to death...
There's some continuity errors, Watson's adult voiceover abruptly cuts in to give us the summary of what characters could explain themselves... and the all important reason why Sherlock deduces that the guy subtly named RATHE was actually the bad guy all along is conveniently glossed over in a cut between shots. That's kind of unforgivable.
Not only does this break consistency with every other time Holmes explained his reasoning, but it's a Sherlock Holmes movie, that makes it an obligatory mystery movie, but there's no mystery here at all.
Or at least there's no mystery-solving. The average Scooby-Doo episode has more mystery-solving than this movie. Case Closed, which is directly inspired by Sherlock Holmes puts this movie to absolute shame in that department.
It's got as much mystery in it as any other thriller with an unknown killer in it, they just go "oh well of course it's obviously this guy" and then never explain.
If there's any big strike against the movie it's probably that, but honestly I find it a bit difficult to believe that it was it's betrayal of genre that lead it to get lukewarm reviews. Either way, I don't feel nearly as positively or negatively toward it as I do any of the above-mentioned movies.
It's a fine movie, nothing really to write home about, and despite my nostalgia it's not about to find a place on my shelf of favorites in any foreseeable future.
Final Verdict: [Good]
Young Sherlock Holmes
Mystery Adventure / English / 1985
WHY'D I WATCH IT?
I've seen it many times, but not recently, and never reviewed it.
WHAT'D I THINK? *SPOILERS*
Pheasant and horses.
I already have a lot of nostalgia for this movie since I grew up with it on VHS so it's naturally challenging to judge it objectively with that in mind. But having not seen it in a long time I can definitely look back on it from a more critical perspective.
The most glaring thing to me is how much this movie seems to be an amalgam of Temple of Doom, which predates it, and Hook, which it predates, all three of which are Steven Spielberg movies.
Hook's climactic swordfight seems to be lifted from this movie while Temple of Doom's iconic scene where a trio of protagonists sneak up on an ancient religion's cruel secret ritual shortly before becoming their next victims almost begs for a bingo game to be made of the similarities.
In truth, Young Sherlock Holmes is a much more family-friendly Temple of Doom movie, and I say that bearing very clearly in mind how much nightmare fuel there actually is in this movie.
This movie separately reminds me of The Rescuers Down Under insofar as it's disturbing imagery is concerned, and the fact that I'm pretty confident that it unintentionally awakened some pretty concerning fetishes in children at some point.
The whole premise is simple enough; we get a voiceover narration from the perspective of Watson presenting a fan-fictionalized account of his first childhood encounter with Sherlock Holmes, initially demonstrating his abilities and gradually working an origin story into every individual piece of his iconic outfit, from hat to pipe.
The conflict here is that they school they attend is home to a mysterious """serial killer""" who kills their victims by means of a blowpipe that induces hallucinations which cause the victim to kill themselves.
Not by any direct or reliable means, just that the hallucinations scare them enough to do something reckless, like jump out a window, get themselves run over, or stab themselves... That they managed to intentionally kill anyone this way is the biggest mystery of this movie.
Anyway the hallucinations presented are pretty varied and at times wildly nightmarish. The opening scene involves a man ordering roast pheasant only for it come alive and start eating him instead. Truly a vegan dream come true, but alas it gets worse.
Watson himself, in an unnecessary stab at his character for being slightly overweight hallucinates a bakery which comes to life, restrains him, and forcefeeds themselves to him, all in graphic stop-motion animation. I guarantee someone developed some kind of vore fetish from that scene.
Most noteworthy of course, I must mention, is the Stained-Glass Knight who is credited in The Making Of Jurassic Park as the first ever fully computer generated character in a feature film.
Overall I do like this movie, the characters are appreciable enough, the main theme song and the "temple chant" are extremely memorable, honestly if you like both Temple of Doom and Hook, this a very similar experience, just with much lesser known actors.
In terms of criticisms, I can't complain too much. It is an EXTREMELY brisk movie, it's like 2 hours but it flies by very quickly, perhaps too quickly.
We get basically one scene introducing the characters, one scene demonstrating Sherlock's skills in a test of problem-solving, some very brief bullshit about him being good at fencing and getting unfairly expelled for cheating accusations, and then we're less than halfway through the movie and we're all-in on the Egyptian Cult Mystery.
The pre-established romance between him and The Damsel in Distress at least spares us the usual pain of courtship scenes, but that's really all she's there for, to be kidnapped and rescued, nothing more. Her makeup is also immaculate in every scene she's in, despite escaping a dusty pyramid burning the ground in which she was nearly mummified and and boiled to death...
There's some continuity errors, Watson's adult voiceover abruptly cuts in to give us the summary of what characters could explain themselves... and the all important reason why Sherlock deduces that the guy subtly named RATHE was actually the bad guy all along is conveniently glossed over in a cut between shots. That's kind of unforgivable.
Not only does this break consistency with every other time Holmes explained his reasoning, but it's a Sherlock Holmes movie, that makes it an obligatory mystery movie, but there's no mystery here at all.
Or at least there's no mystery-solving. The average Scooby-Doo episode has more mystery-solving than this movie. Case Closed, which is directly inspired by Sherlock Holmes puts this movie to absolute shame in that department.
It's got as much mystery in it as any other thriller with an unknown killer in it, they just go "oh well of course it's obviously this guy" and then never explain.
If there's any big strike against the movie it's probably that, but honestly I find it a bit difficult to believe that it was it's betrayal of genre that lead it to get lukewarm reviews. Either way, I don't feel nearly as positively or negatively toward it as I do any of the above-mentioned movies.
It's a fine movie, nothing really to write home about, and despite my nostalgia it's not about to find a place on my shelf of favorites in any foreseeable future.
Final Verdict: [Good]