The Hound of the Baskervilles

The only favorable quality of this version is that the cinematography isn't too bad and there are some nice atmospheric shots. But the casting/acting/story... hideous. Holmes and Watson are mis-cast to begin with. Neither Hart or Roxburgh can pull off Watson/Holmes to save their lives. It's obvious that not only did neither of them study Conan Doyle's work carefully, they are completely incapable of delivering a line and not having it be DOA.

The acting is just BAD BAD BAD! (the directing too) Dialog falls completely flat almost always. Especially in scenes where there should be something there! For instance... the discovery of Holmes' hideout on the moor... Hart/Roxburgh stand there and delivery their lines like they're high school drama students reading the script for the first time! They're perfectly still, have no sense of timing, and have nothing behind the lines at all, and Watson barely acts surprised when Holmes shows up. It's almost unwatchable! This seems to be the dominant mode for the entire film. Furthermore... Roxburgh reads his lines in such a bland way he's almost parroting them. We're supposed to be convinced this guy is thinking??

I'm not completely against another version on Hound being made... but this supposed 'update' is pointless. Beyond the terrible acting the butchering of the script and the stupid (and oft discussed by other reviewers) use of cocaine during a case is pathetic. (For a GOOD story about Holmes' drug use see Brett in the disturbing "Devil's Foot".)

Bottom line again: See the Brett version, the best. Or really, any other version besides this one.


Surprisingly Engaging, if Loosely Based on the Book   October 27, 2003
 2 out of 2 found this review helpful

While choosing to reinvent, as opposed to reiterate, elements of previous "Hound" adaptations and the novel upon which they are based, this spritely television version of the familiar story maintains the essence of Conan Doyle's works while giving them a badly needed boost of cool. Here, Holmes is less the twitchy, sunken-eyed manic-depressive of the Jeremy Brett era, but more the confident Victorian adventurer (though not as suave or wonderfully controlled as in the Rathbone era). And while Richard Roxburgh may ruffle a few feathers as Holmes--he is a bit too fair-haired and frat boy for the part--he also brings a sense of joy to Holmes that hasn't been seen in a while. The plot is loosely based on the novel, in that a ghostly hound appears to be the engine to fulfill a deadly curse on the Baskerville family. Several liberties, though, are taken with the general story, including making Watson, as played by Ian Hart, a harder-edged character than we've seen before and presenting Holmes' infamous drug use as a bourgoise form of recreation rather than a tonic for intellectual stagnation. Still, David Attwood's fluid direction and a nice musical score push this production above the standard humdrum television fare--especially the tepid stuff generally produced in the U.S.


Hound dirt   August 19, 2003
 7 out of 13 found this review helpful

All I'm gonna say is: I wanted to like it, being a fan of both Holmes and the actors involved- but this movie stunk up my living room so bad I had to move out of my house.

If you want a more "faithful" version try ANY other! Even the Rathbone version. Heck, even Peter Cushing didn't shoot cocaine in his version- something not even mentioned in the book.

I have to go clean up the hound dirt in my living room.

VIVE LE JEREMY BRETT!


Revisionist Holmes...   July 23, 2003
 6 out of 10 found this review helpful

First let me say that I really wanted to like this movie. The settings are perfect, and we see the famous Moor recounted in the original story as the rain-and-windswept barren wasteland it was intended to be. The casting of Dr. Mortimer, Stapleton and his wife, and the Barrymores is true to Doyle. And the Hound is as realistic and frightening as possible this side of ILM's special effects.

Sadly, beyond these a few other trifles, the film fails due to its insistance on rewriting Doyle's penultimate Holmes mystery. The producers chose to heap on their own additional scenes while abridging Doyle's masterwork, tossing in a Christmas party and even a seance. Doyle's characters are radically altered, reworked, or their parts truncaded. Famous sequences in the book are reversed, condensed, or excised altogether. The ending leaves a great deal to be desired, too.

Even the balance of the casting only serves to move things downhill. Actors Roxburgh and Hart are perhaps ten to twenty years too young to fill the roles of Holmes and Watson. Further, Roxburgh looks little or nothing like the Master Detective (a blonde Holmes?). And while Roxburgh can scrape by as Holmes (if the viewer is at the very least inattentive), Hart is a miserable Watson. I'm not sure if the blame is Hart's or the director's, but a whiney, adversarial Watson was simply more sauce for this already well-cooked goose.

Worst of all is the portrayed drug use by Holmes, who, as anyone who has read the canon with the slightest detatchment knows, was something he only engaged in between cases and not during. The "real" Holmes always turned to his tobacco pipe when studying a problem. Here, he partakes of his seven percent solution on a regular basis.

Ultimately, the movie simply does not touch the other film versions of the Baskerville mystery, despite the excellent locations and the fine supporting cast. Holmes purists will be furious with the film, and more forgiving fans of the inhabitants of a certain flat on Baker Street will likely be disappointed at best. The movie is yet another example of why reinventing a classic story to suit the annoying gorgon of revisionism rarely if ever works.

A most nettlesome result to be sure.