BootDigest Such a frustrating disappointment

Pacionsbo Absolutely Fantastic

Brendon Jones It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

Allison Davies The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Leofwine_draca SHERLOCK: A CASE OF EVIL is possibly the worst on-screen adaptation of the literary Holmes that I can remember seeing, and that includes the terrible Asylum version. The problem with this TV movie is that it's nothing like the literary Holmes, and adding in a few dialogue passages from one of the stories doesn't really help much. James D'Arcy comes across as a creepy narcissist rather than the famous Holmes, and Watson is a buffoonish bore instead of the likable army surgeon. You feel sorry for Richard E. Grant and Struan Rogers being forced to appear in this long-winded nonsense, which also wastes the considerable talents of Vincent D'Onofrio, another case of miscasting as Moriarty.

dlewis-12 The problem with this interpretation is that it seems a disconnected story from the canon of Sherlock Holmes stories. While it has a fascinating (though not original) idea of having a younger Sherlock Holmes who is the polar opposite of the character we came to know in the book, it never fully develops this.Richard E Grant plays a good role, as Mycroft. To the reviewer who stated that Mycroft never appeared in the stories, I direct you to the 'Greek Interpreter' and 'The Bruce-Partington Plans'. Watson may well be the person who Holmes accuses in the stories of making things up - he is a police official - not in Afghanistan. The idea that Moriarty invents heroin is a bit much.In all, the story was good, but the film could have been better.

smokehill retrievers After reading comments on IMDB for some some years now I'm beginning to think that there are an awful lot of self-styled film critics on the board that believe they'll be taken more seriously if they sneeringly disparage everything they see. True, it's easier to carve up a film than really critique it, but that ill serves the other board visitors who are mostly trying to get an impression of a movie to see if it's worth seeing. This is far exaggerated with any Sherlock Holmes film, since they (including me) can be pretty picky and very purist in outlook. I don't mind straying a bit from The Canon, or even taking a severe liberty or two if the end product is enjoyable. I was perfectly prepared, of course, to dislike this made-for-TV movie and went in expecting very little. I was pleasantly surprised.I enjoyed it.It took many liberties with The Canon, to be sure, but I enjoyed the several departures from established plotlines and character. It's hard to take new approaches to this genre, and I think this one worked well in the end.I'd give it a good honest seven, or thereabouts, which is more than I'd give most of the critics on this Board. If you're a Holmes fan, watch this one. It's miles better than some of the sappy efforts we're used to.

RobinSisson I saw this movie recently with the very greatest of hopes.I have been a Sherlock Holmes fan for as long as I can remember, so when I saw the box for this film on the shelves at my local video store, I yanked it up without even looking at the synopsis on the back. After watching the movie, I might have enjoyed the synopsis more...a LOT more. The characters were two-dimensional and under-developed at very best: no depth at all was brought to any one of them, but for the struggling Rebecca Doyle, portrayed by Gabrielle Anwar...and in this setting, finding anything to like about her was a struggle. James D'Arcy never even saw the mark in attempting to bring humanity to the legendary Holmes; he just came off weak and vacillating in D'Arcy's hands. Vincent D'Onofrio - of whom I am an incredible fan normally, and who is notoriously known as "the Human Chameleon" for his most uncanny ability to lose himself in a role - just phoned this performance in, when I'd have loved to have seen a far more layered interpretation of this legendary bad guy. Roger Morlidge does a serviceable job of Dr. Watson, but it's just not enough.The plot was presumptuous of far too much detail relevant to the Holmes legend to introduce such intricacies as the reasoning behind the heroin addiction suffered by he and his brother, without providing much substantive sub-plot to make it plausible...or even make us care.The fencing battles between Holmes and Moriarty are well-executed, but only consume a cumulative twenty minutes of the film at the very most. Writer Piers Ashworth didn't think outside the box in his creation of this "new perspective", he just created a new box and hopped right in. Director Graham Theakston didn't seem to even attempt to transcend the poor scripting with crafty, smart, or inspiring visuals.I just didn't get it.