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From: leeper@mtgzz.UUCP (m.r.leeper)
Newsgroups: net.movies
Subject: YOUNG SHERLOCK HOLMES
Message-ID: <1487@mtgzz.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 18-Dec-85 09:42:21 EST
Article-I.D.: mtgzz.1487
Posted: Wed Dec 18 09:42:21 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 21-Dec-85 19:04:26 EST
Organization: AT&T Information Systems Labs, Holmdel NJ
Lines: 71


			    YOUNG SHERLOCK HOLMES
		       A film review by Mark R. Leeper

	  Capsule review:  While Sherlock Holmes purists will find
     plenty not to like here, this is a pleasant and surprisingly
     substantial film.  This may well turn out to be one of the
     few entertaining films of this holiday season.

     I am afraid that I have not been reviewing too many films of late.  The
reason is that this particular holiday season is delivering a lot of films
that simply don't interest me very much.  After seeing SUPERMAN III and
SUPERGIRL, I have very little interest in seeing the same team's super-Santa
film, SANTA CLAUS--THE MOVIE.  That the Salkind name used to be associated
with films of the quality of THREE and FOUR MUSKETEERS and that they are now
making product-plugging pap is a tragedy.  ROCKY IV and DEATHWISH 3 continue
to trade off of the popularity of two okay films that really didn't need
sequels.  These days Steven Spielberg's name is associated with films of
varying degrees of quality.  Some are weak, like GOONIES and EXPLORERS; some
are strong, like BACK TO THE FUTURE.  For the Christmas season a Spielberg
film, YOUNG SHERLOCK HOLMES, has gotten me back into the theater.

     YOUNG SHERLOCK HOLMES is one of Spielberg's more substantial films and
it represents a quality close to that of BACK TO THE FUTURE.  The film is an
entertaining adventure aimed at a teenage level but with wide enough appeal
from adults.  With unusual integrity, the film admits at both its beginning
and end that it is inconsistent with the mythos of Sherlock Holmes.  Among
other things, it has Holmes and Watson meeting at a far younger age than
they do in Conan Doyle's STUDY IN SCARLET.  Further, the film is
inconsistent with the style of a Sherlock Holmes story.  In many ways it is
more like a Sax Rohmer adventure, but how many people would understand a
title like YOUNG NAYLAND SMITH?

     The story concerns Holmes getting involved with and solving a
mysterious set of murders while he is at school.  To give the special
effects wizards something to do, the story involves hallucinations, many of
which are very creatively put on the screen.  One touch that does not work:
Industrial Light and Magic, who in DRAGONSLAYER, made a dragon that looked
like it could really fly, for this film made a flying machine that
absolutely could not.  Since human-powered flight has finally been achieved
in our time, they could have at least put some of the principles into the
design of the Victorian flying machine that might have made it look more
believable.

     Actually the main story does not function well as a Sherlock Holmes
story.  Holmes makes only one real Holmes-like deduction toward solving the
murders.  We see more of his deductive powers in finding a lost fencing
trophy than in finding the murderer.  The film does nicely use the same
fallacy that Conan Doyle exploited.  Doyle's observation was that there are
clues in crimes that only a trained observer would notice.  Then in the most

classic Holmes stories these clues are just the right clues and are
sufficient clues to point to the solution.  While invisible clues do exist,
Doyle's artificial placement of these clues was the real reason Holmes
seemed so clever.  And this film is one more example that filmmakers have
lost the talent of writing mysteries that have real surprises.  The people I
saw the film with and I all knew who the murderer was before Holmes did.

     The young people in the cast (all unknowns) are well-chosen to give a
Victorian feel in a way that someone like Michael J. Fox could not.
Nicholas Rowe and Alan Cox are Holmes and Watson.  The young woman who
played the love interest for Holmes looked very much like Simon Ward in long
hair, and was played, I discovered later, by Sophie Ward.  I would not be at
all surprised to discover Sophie is really Simon Ward's daughter.  The film
makes for an entertaining evening.  Rate it a +1 on the -4 to +4 scale.


					Mark R. Leeper
					...ihnp4!mtgzz!leeper