It wasn’t too long ago that I wrote about my regrets for not having seen Young Sherlock Holmes when it came out, thinking that it might have taken me down a different creative path if I’d actually seen it. Since that time, there’s been all kinds of activity happening in the world of Sherlock Holmes, Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes not only proved that Guy wasn’t ready to be written off in the directing department, but also that Sherlock could be crammed into any kind of style and still be true to it’s ideals (and even without the use of disclaimers).
Now, on the eve of the release of Sherlock Holmes on DVD, Paramount is re-releasing Young Sherlock Holmes, and even though it’s coming without any new special features (not even a new commentary? come on!) it’s still worth a look. ‘Cause just like Ritchie gave Sherlock the Jason Bourne treatment, Chris Columbus’s script was no doubt the secret ingredient in giving Sherlock the Harry Potter treatment (even if it was made over a decade before Hogwarts was even on the map).
The movie is based on the proposition that Sherlock Holmes and John Watson had met eachother in boarding school when they were teenagers. Don’t worry Doyle-ians, they have disclaimers at the beginning and the end of the film stating that it never happened according to Arthur Conan Doyle’s account of their existence. While Sherlock and John get to know eachother, an Egyptian cult is bumping off Londoners and it’s up to the young sleuths to find out why. The poison used in these murders causes hallucinations, so there’s ample opportunity for some Oscar nominated special effects from Industrial Light & Magic which creates the Harry Potter trifecta: 2 boys and 1 girl, a mystery afoot, plenty of special effects wizardry. I guess what it needed was another 10 years on the shelf to make it into a megahit.
Young Sherlock Holmes is being re-released today.
