Young Sherlock Holmes
Starring Nicholas Rowe, Sophie Ward, Alan Cox, Susan Fleetwood, Anthony Higgins, Freddie Jones and Anthony Higgins
Trailer Uploaded by Paramount Movies
This film hangs on the premise that Holmes and Watson met as children. Watson comes late to the boarding school that Holmes attends, and is swiftly swept up in Holmes’s world. The two join forces with Holmes’ love interest Elizabeth to solve the mysterious spate of deaths across London, after Elizabeth’s uncle, and sole guardian is a victim.
It’s a fun romp for the most part, including ancient Egyptian cults, flying machines, sword fights, and several hallucinatory scenes one of which included walking cakes. Some of the action however, could be considered to be a little too much for very small children, there’s one scene involving a teenage girl being subjected to boiling oil while still alive, it’s not especially graphic, but there is enough there to give small children nightmares.
Rowe, as Sherlock Holmes has more emotional range than we are used to seeing the character possess, as he has not been through much trauma in his life. His connection€ with Elizabeth, is clearly the most important relationship that he is supposed to have had by that point. I don’t really remember that his parents made a big impact within the film, and evidently this is backed up in Conan Doyle’s stories as well, as Holmes’s parents don’t get a mention as far as I recall.
I liked Elizabeth, she’s a strong willed young girl, and has fun scenes with her eccentric uncle Waxflatter (Nigel Stock) who is trying to make a flying machine.
It’s also interesting to see Watson as a young boy, although the writers do place a lot of emphasis on his physical stature. One of the scenes that highlight it most obviously, is when Watson is hit with a dart, inspiring the sight of walking and talking cakes. clip uploaded by movieclips. The same scene includes some backstory into Holmes’ parents, and his relationship with them.
However the film paints Holmes to be a far more physical character than Conan Doyle wrote him as. I had a image of him being more cerebral than physical, but this version has him sword fighting on numerous occasions, uploaded by movieclips.
It’s a sweet film, and a interesting addition to the Sherlock Holmes canon.
Musings of a thirtysomething woman 