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nTitle: Young Sherlock Holmes (1985)
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nDirector: Barry Levinson
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nCast: Nicholas Rowe, Alan Cox, Sophie Ward
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nReview:
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nYoung Sherlock Holmes is the kind of children’s film thatnSteven Spielberg used to produce during the eighties, a time when he really hadna knack for making these types of films. I’m talking about films like The Gooniesn(1985), Gremlins (1984), Harry and the Hendersons (1987), Indiana Jones and thenTemple of Doom
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nThis film attempts to show us the first meeting between SherlocknHolmes and his investigative partner Watson. We get to see their firstnadventure together. A scroll during the films opening credits tells us thatnthis film isn’t based on any of Arthur Conan Doyle’s novels, but that it isnobviously inspired by them. The film was written by director/writer ChristophernColumbus before he’d ever directed a film himself. You see, Chris Columbusnstarted out as a writer, and truth be told he wrote a great bunch of children’snfilms. In fact, he seems to really understand and get the pre-teen demographicnvery well, he’s the guy who wrote Gremlins, The Goonies, and the awesomenanimated children’s film Little Nemo: Adventures in Slumberland (1989), don’tnknow how many of you guys have seen that one, but I highly recommend it, it isna great escapist fantasy with some wild dream like visuals. It is in my opinionna criminally underrated film! He then went on to direct Adventures innBabysitting (1987) and Home Alone (1990) amongst many other box officensuccesses. So we have a good writer here paying tribute to the belovedncharacter of Sherlock Holmes.
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nThe story for Young Sherlock Holmes is similar in some waysnto Guy Ritchie’s excellent Sherlock Holmes (2009) because it is also about ansecret cult that exists deep within the bowels of the London city streets. Both films deal withnsimilar themes as well: religion is all about illusions; about making you see thingsnthat are not there. In Young Sherlock Holmes, Holmes and Watson investigate whynrandom people seem to be dying out of fear! Apparently people are seeing thingsnthat attack them and here’s where the film offers us some of its morenimaginative special effects. By the way, it is important to mention that YoungnSherlock Holmes excels with its visual effects; some scenes used morentraditional forms of special effects like stop motion animation, while othernscenes were downright groundbreaking for their time.
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nIn fact the effects work on this film was so groundbreakingnthat it was nominated for the best visual effects Oscar that year,nunfortunately Cocoon (1985) beat Young Sherlock Holmes for the award. In allnhonesty it was Young Sherlock Holmes who should have taken home the Oscar. Why?nBecause this film was one of the ones responsible for giving birth to CGI! Thenfilm has this famous scene –a milestone of modern cinema really- where anstained glass knight comes alive and tries to kill the vicar of the Christian church.nBy today’s computer animated standards this scene is child’s play, but backnthen it was groundbreaking stuff. The scene took the guys at Pixar (who stillnworked for George Lucas’s Industrial Lights and Magic back then) six months to achieve,nand it only lasted 30 seconds! It was the first film to mix live action with ancomputer generated image. Young Sherlock Holmes along with other films likenRock and Rule (1983), 2010: The Year we Make Contact (1984) and The LastnStarfighter (1984) were the cinematic parents of the computer generated visualsnthat are so popular in today’s films, so that alone makes Young Sherlock Holmesnan important film.
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nBut effects alone do not make this one a worthy watch; thenfilm benefits from a genuine love for its source material. You can tell thatnChris Columbus was aware that he was dealing with a beloved character, and sonhe paid his respects to it by treating the character accordingly. We get to seenthe first time Holmes wears his famous hat, we get to see where he gets hisncoat, his pipe, and we get to hear him say “the games a foot!” a couple of times. There’s little nudges herenand there to previous Sherlock Holmes films and books. And then there’s thenfact that Nicholas Rowe and Alan Cox fit their characters to perfection. Somenhave noticed similarities between the Harry Potter books/films and thisnparticular film and I’d have to say the similarities are pretty blatant. Fornexample the story takes place in a school in England ; we get two boys and a girlnas protagonists, a trio of friends. The teachers in the school form annimportant part of the story and finally, Christopher Columbus, the guy whonwrote Young Sherlock Holmes actually ended up directing the first two HarrynPotter films. Who knows, maybe J.K. Rowling was a true fan of this film and wasninspired by it to write her books? It wouldn’t surprise me that much. Sonanyways, that’s it boys and girls, what we have here is an enjoyable adventure filmnthat displays some true love and affection for its source material. Highlynrecommend it if you want to see a good children’s film with some innovativeneffects.
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nRating: 3 1/2 out of 5
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