The Hound of the Baskervilles (2000)

Spoilers if you haven't read the novel or seen one of the 20 or so better adaptations of the story. Probably one of the poorer adaptations of Arthur Conan Doyle's novel, this one has Matt Frewer (a good actor) as Holmes who is absent for most of the movie. While this is close to the original story (which is mostly told from the view of Dr. Watson) Holmes is more absent from this adaptation than he normally is. This one is written in a way where Watson probably would have figured it out for himself given another ten minutes. I can't give this one a good review, and I love a lot of the quirkier Holmes adaptations... even the one where Watson is a Chinese woman for some reason.

I cannot agree with most of the comments here. Any film version of a Holmes story is going to be a problem - why pick on this one? After all, something of the rather pointed (sometimes uncomfortable) sarcasm of the literary Holmes comes through. No performance is seriously bad in this film; Frewer comes over well, so do the rest. I sometimes wonder if affection for certain film portrayals rather overrides the accuracy of the story - this one was not the worst by a long shot. Utter accuracy is not probable in the film world, so we should, I think, not be all too picky. Even so, the flavour of the stories is one which no director has ever captured, I admit. This film goes some way towards rectifying the matter.

Before I bought the DVD of this version of the "Hound of the Baskervilles" with Matt Frewer playing Holmes, I read the other user comments listed on the IMDB and I have to agree that the script was not very good and in fact, I found it to be somewhat poor in many respects. I also must mention that Jason London's performance as Sir Henry Baskerville was in my opinion dismal. He played the role as if the casting company went out in the street and asked the first guy they came across to please step in and take the role. I would think that Joe Namath could have done better but on the other hand maybe that is what London was trying to do. Maybe London was trying to put into the role such realism as a simple man pulled into a situation as an inheritor to a vast English estate that he played the role with a deadpan delivery of his lines. I wonder. On the other hand I was delighted with Matt Frewer's Sherlock Holmes. His physical appearance fit the role well and his particular charactaristics in stage presentation I think added an interesting twist to the Holmes character. As a Sherlockian, I like to see the differences that various actors give to the character. I would have liked to seen more of Frewer's Holmes in this film but the dismal script distorted and shortened the story so that the Holmes character is only seen in the first quarter of the film and then near the end of the film. In agreement with most of the other comments made on this version, If you are a film buff and a Sherlockian as I am, than this DVD is worth adding to your collection. If you are simply a fan of mystery films perhaps it is better for you to wait for this version to be rerun on TV or if you find it in your video rental store, the film is certainly worth the rental fee. Trailrider

I don't know of any serious Sherlockian who would have any use for this abhorred mess! I have absolutely nothing good to say -- it wastes a lot of time, talent and money. And now Matt Frewer is doing sequels! The mind boggles!By the way, what kind of dog did they use in this version? Looked like a skipperdee!