Audience Member
Not a big fan of this one... Too much brain matter.
Rated 2/5 Stars •
Rated 2 out of 5 stars
02/10/23
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Audience Member
Some truly terrible acting from all involved make this a real chore to watch, especially if you're more familiar with the excellent Jeremy Brett or the recent Downey Jnr versions. James D'Arcy is pretty appaling as Holmes (even Young Sherlock Holmes was better) but is not the worst thing here. Instead we have a camp Dr Watson and Anwar copying Heather Graham's performance from 'From Hell' and being even worse! D'Onofrio is usually quite reliable but he looks out of sorts here and can't really cope with the accent. It looks quite good (the sets are convincing) but there is a weird electronic score and there is a strong whiff of 'cheap' about the whole thing. The best thing is Richard E. Grant as Mycroft. His all too brief scene makes you wish that he'd played Holmes instead!
Rated 1.5/5 Stars •
Rated 1.5 out of 5 stars
02/09/23
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Audience Member
I found some things interesting in this reinterpretation of Holmes, but D'Onofrio was unintentionally funny as Professor Moriarty. Overall it just didn't hold together.
Rated 1.5/5 Stars •
Rated 1.5 out of 5 stars
02/16/23
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Audience Member
As long as you can get past the fact that it's not, well, Doyle's Sherlock, then you might be able to enjoy it. Purist's will be reeling though. And as much as I like D'Onofrio, his accent seemed a bit off. But hey, other than those pesky things - I really liked it. As a Doyle fan, I had to be able to separate the Sherlock name. Since I saw all the angry posts about that before the movie - I was well prepared and knew what I had to do. :-)
Rated 4/5 Stars •
Rated 4 out of 5 stars
01/16/23
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Audience Member
I just saw this film in a cropped TV version (reduced to a 4/3 format from its original 1:78/1) and I must say I spent a rather enjoyable evening, perhaps because I had been warned against its major flaws.
"Sherlock: Case of Evil" is an apocryphal and "revisionist" Sherlock Holmes story which purports to relate some of the great detective's early cases and an alternate version of his meeting with Dr. Watson, who is here portrayed as a mortician (the meeting is indeed so different from what Conan Doyle established that I expected this Dr. Watson, whose Christian name is never mentioned, ultimately to turn out to be another Watson.)
The Sherlock Holmes we are shown is not yet a celebrity, though he learns to make use of the newspapers to publicise his exploits. He is already a brilliant "deductionist", but is constantly one step behind his nemesis Moriarty. Quite unlike the mature Holmes of the Doyle stories, he is also a ladies' man, "bedding" no less than four of them in the ninety minutes of the film, including two at once (that all of them were unchaperoned makes me suspect that the screenwriter got the Victorian era slightly mixed up with the swinging sixties.) He is also a hard drinker who, once drunk, will go to a brothel to seek inspiration in glasses of absinth; and a chain smoker, a habit Watson already knew to be bad for your health.
If you are willing to accept all these changes to the canon, you should be able to enjoy this TV movie. My two disappointments were with the exterior sets, which mostly looked to be generic studio streets, and Vincent d'Onofrio as Professor Moriarty. I know the title "Professor" is probably purely honorary, but d'Onofrio was a little too beefy and unsophisticated for my tastes. His fondness for one-liners made him look like a villain for some half-serious superhero movie, and he dressed like a crooked businessman from a Dickens adaptation. The film is also very predictable: I basically knew who had done what, who was in it and who wasn't, who hadn't died and who would die, within the first fifteen minutes. I guess this is because much in the film is recycled from earlier Holmes stories, canonical or not. (If you are on the lookout for cliches, the film also suffers from the Climbing Villain Syndrome.)
The strong points of the film are the performances. James d'Arcy as Sherlock, I thought, was quite good (if you like BBC adaptations of British classics, you may have seen him in the title role of the 2001 "Nicholas Nickleby", in the latest "Mansfield Park" or as Blifil in "The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling".) Roger Morlidge as Watson and Nicholas Gecks as Lestrade were also both excellent, all the more so as they were treated as full-fledged, competent individuals, rather than as foils for Holmes' brilliant intellect. And perhaps best of all, though present in only one short scene, was Richard Grant as Mycroft (he was to return to the Sherlock mythos that same year with the rather good adaptation of "The Hound of the Baskervilles", starring Richard Roxburgh as Holmes.) Remembering him mostly from over-the-top comedies, I was surprised to discover that he had such dramatic talent.
Once again, this film is nothing revolutionary. But I've seen worse Sherlock Holmes movies, and as I can't stand Jeremy Brett's antics, I'm always happy to discover one I can watch.
Rated 2.5/5 Stars •
Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars
02/20/23
Full Review
Audience Member
Unquestionably, Sherlock Holmes qualifies as one of the most popular characters
in English literature as well as the media. Hundreds of films and
television shows have been made about him. Some are serious, while
others are frivolous. Movies and television shows about Sherlock Holmes
can be classified by their treatment of Holmes' companion Dr. Watson as
well as the depiction of London Police Inspector Lestrade. Of course,
the classic Sherlock Holmes is Basil Rathbone with Nigel Bruce as his
bumbling sidekick Dr. Watson in the period 20th Century Fox and later
contemporary Universal Pictures movies. Jeremy Brett has acquired a fan
base for his impersonation of Holmes and the television shows that
feature him adhere most closely to his literary counterpart than any
others. Several actors have played the role. Leslie Howard's son Ronald
Howard played Holmes rather conscientiously in the 1950 TV series and
donned the deerstalker. All too often Holmes has been identified with
the deerstalker because it looks so singular along with his curved
pipe. Howard's Watson wasn't as cretinous as Bruce's Watson. In the
late 1960s, Robert Stephens made an interesting Sherlock Holmes in
Billy Wilder's "The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes." Roger Moore
essayed the role in "Sherlock Holmes in New York" in the 1970s.
"Dracula" star Christopher Lee has incarnated the Arthur Conan Doyle's
celebrated amateur sleuth in both films and television in the 1960s and
1970s. Steven Spielberg produced "Young Sherlock Holmes" that had
Holmes meeting Watson in a boarding school when they were youths.
Evil" is an interesting spin on the early life of the eponymous
character. The story occurs about the same time as "A Study in
Scarlet." Holmes has just tangled with the nefarious Dr. Moriarty
(Vincent D'Onofrio of "Full Metal Jacket") and they fight each other in
the deserted backstreets of London at night with cane swords.
Eventually, Moriarty whips out a revolver and Holmes blows him away
with a single shot that sends the villain pitching backwards
involuntarily into the sewer system so that his body cannot be
recovered. Holmes makes the mistake of informing the London newspapers
that he has vanquished his deadly foe. Holmes had been working for a
society dame, Rebecca Doyle (Gabrielle Anwar of "Body Snatchers") who
Moriarty had tried to blackmail for 10-thousand pounds.
At this point, Holmes is a younger chap than he has been played in the
past. He has not met Watson yet, but he has horrid memories of the
dastardly deeds that Moriarty did to his older brother Mycroft (Richard
E. Grant) in giving him injections of some unknown narcotic. Holmes
smokes cigarettes, drinks liquor, and occasionally goes to bed with a
woman. He lives at 221 Baker Street, but he doesn't have a league of
urchins running messages for him. He informs London Inspector Lestrade
(Nicholas Gecks) about the death of Moriarty, but Lestrade isn't
impressed with the news or Holmes. Meanwhile, a serial killer has been
knocking off opium merchants methodically and Holmes refers to the
killer as a sieral killer. An opium merchant hires Holmes and slips him
a document signed by a local judge that authorizes Holmes to attend the
latest autopsy of a murdered opium merchant. Lestrade objects initially
until he sees the document, but the coroner is not impressed. The
coroner is Dr. John H. Watson. Holmes and Watson (Roger Morlidge) grow
fond of each other because they have keen scientific minds and speak
the same language. This Watson is no fool and something of an inventor.
He builds Holmes a single shot walking stick.
Eventually, Moriarty reappears. Of course, Moriarty is behind the
murders. He is trying to corner the market on a new drug that has not
been outlawed yet: morphine. Holmes discovers that the young blackmail
victim was hired by Moriarty so that he could dupe Holmes into
believing that he had killed him. Holmes suffers in humiliation when he
realizes that Moriarty has made a fool of him. Moriarty decides to
eliminate Holmes and he abducts the sleuth, pumps him repeatedly full
of morphine. Clearly, the producers are suggesting that Holmes came to
use needles because Moriarty turned him into an addict. Holmes manages
to escape. Moriarty kidnaps the woman that he hired to fool Holmes.
Holmes had been protecting the woman from Moriarty and they became
romantically involved until Moriarty grabs her and murders her in cold
blood. Holmes and Moriarity duel again, this time in Big Ben, and
Holmes sends Moriarty plunging from the shattered clock bace into the
Thames.
This R-rated for drug use adventure concludes with Watson becoming
Holmes casebook correspondent. One of Holmes' relatives sends him a
deerstalker and Watson, who has been reprimanding Holmes for smoking
cigarettes, gives him a curved pipe. The crisply made, period adventure
concludes with a bandaged Holmes posing in profile with the curved pipe
and deerstalker for Watson who shoots a photograph of his newest
friend. The pace is quick and Holmes and Watson even get into a brawl
at a pub with several assailants and smash their way to safety with
their fist. James D'Arcy of "Master and Commander" makes a bland but
acceptable Holmes, while D'Onofrio is exceptional as the wicked
Moriarty. There is one nude scene when a woman strips for Holmes in his
Baker Street apartment. Holmes doesn't have an interfering land lady.
Watson isn't a clown.
Indeed, "Cadfael" director Graham Theakston has taken some liberties
with the famous character, but "Sherlock: Case of Evil" benefits from
top-notch production values.
Rated 3.5/5 Stars •
Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars
02/15/23
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