Young Sherlock Holmes (1985)

The '80s did this thing where they had age regression on a lot of established characters in lit and film...this is one of those and thank God they weren't babies.But otherwise...Movies like this were awesome...huge from the Golden Age of the Silver Screen into the '90s when they started to peter out until, well, until they vanished leaving us with nothing but Super Hero films to fill the void......I have nothing against Super Hero films, but I love adventure films too.I can see where folks would not like it, especially the people that take themselves too seriously. It is stuck in a genera that is at once extremely pulp and kind of serialized. Even if it's not a sequel, you know the story.The Goonies, Nate and Hayes, Jake Speed, Firewalker, Vibes, Big Trouble in Little China, Romancing the Stone...and of course the crown, the king, the Indiana Jones movies.They are all close enough to one another to really fit into the same mold. The characters change, the concepts stay the same and....we love it.Enter the Roguish hero and the damsel in distress in an exotic location to find X marking the MacGuffin, but first they have to work their way through obstacles both natural and man made in the form of a nasty antagonist and a couple of henchmen. Throw in a semi-bumbling sidekick and you have what I like to call "High Adventure." "Young Sherlock Holmes" follows that outline and if you are the kind of individual that is still young enough at heart to love adventure films...you will inevitably like this movie.If you are the kind of man or woman that takes everything extremely seriously and refuses to play at all, not matter what it is. If you are the type that would use the word "compete" instead of "play" or "game" than you are going to hate this movie.

A combination of writer Chris Columbus, director Barry Levinson and Executive Producer Steven Spielberg gives us Young Sherlock Holmes. A re-imagining of when Holmes and Watson met at boarding school.Columbus who went on to direct the first Harry Potter film very much had in his mind an almost prototype Harry Potter feel years before JK Rowling wrote the books!In dastardly Victorian London a young Watson arrives at boarding school and meets a brilliant student named Sherlock Holmes. However there are strange deaths going on near the school with people having frightening hallucinations before dying. Holmes sets about to investigate and uncovers a bizarre Egyptian cult and wrongdoings leading to the school itself.The film was known for some state of the art digital effects such as the stained glass knight. The plot does feel like an American take on a Sherlock Holmes story complete with a young but still bumbling and slightly chubby Watson. Its a light plot mixed with story lines from previous Spielberg films such as Indiana Jones The filmmakers want to have reverence to Conan Doyle but as the BBC series of the modern Sherlock has shown, it would had been possible to have a radical take of Young Sherlock Holmes if they had pushed the envelope a bit further and had gone for a slightly different and zippy characterisation of the two main characters.

Young Sherlock (Nicholas Rowe) and young Watson (Alan Cox) meet as young schoolmates in "Young Sherlock Holmes," from 1985. Both of them immediately get into trouble.Holmes becomes intrigued as well as angry when several people die of apparent suicide or hysteria, including someone with whom he was very close, Professor Waxflatter. Waxflatter keeps repeating a word over and over before he dies, and Holmes decides to investigate. While doing so, he discovers a hallucinatory drug that is blown into the victim, causing them to see things that aren't there. He also discovers an Egyptian-type religious cult called Rametep, who make use of this drug.After observing one of the cult's rituals, Holmes, Watson, and another school friend, Elizabeth, are spotted and hit with the drug, each suffering horrific hallucinations.Holmes is unable to interest Inspector Lestrade in this case, and when a fellow student sets him up by forging test questions in his handwriting, Holmes is expelled. Though he's supposed to leave town, he stays in a room at Elizabeth's, helped by Elizabeth and Watson. He's found, and Watson is expelled as well. Can they solve the mystery, and can they get back into school? In the Conan Doyle stories, Holmes and Watson meet as adults, but it's stated up front that this is a speculative fiction. Those who know Holmes as an intellectual, probably asexual, with not much in the way of physical prowess, will see that here, he is an expert swordsman and also falls for Elizabeth. Watson here is a chubby young man (as stated in the script, though he really didn't look it), very bookish looking and not at all adventurous.The plot is reminiscent of Raiders of the Lost Ark in that there is a lot of action and adventure, as well as exploration of the cult, which has its meetings in a cavernous place with a replica of a pyramid, where its members wear costumes and practice mummification. There are lots of special effects during the hallucination sequences as well as in other sections.This is a marvelous film for kids, and I have to say as an adult, I enjoyed it as well. The final silhouette of Holmes is delightful, as we see the man he will become.

This film was very entertaining when I watched it. It shows an imagined meeting of Holmes and Watson, as teens, at a boarding school. Holmes also meets his love at the school, no not another boy, the daughter of a retired professor who lives upstairs. Sophie Ward plays this love interest but is killed in the end. Someone looking for a reason Holmes never married?? The only sticking points I had was with the Egyptian cult that the sole survivor of an Egyptian village destroyed from a bad dig sets up in England. Usually villagers had little if any book learning, could neither read or write. How could a village peasant get the money, education, and followers to set up the cult? Then, how come every cultist appears to be a white, Englishman, no Egyptian's wanted in? Outside of that though I thought this was a very well written and acted movie. Fun to watch