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It was difficult to sit through this horrible heretical adaptation of Sherlock Holmes. Apparently Matt Frewer was cast because he is tall and skinny. His skull-like face made for a good zombie in the Dawn of the Dead remake, but as Sherlock Holmes he looks like a scarecrow. Not only does Frewer have a lanky lackadaisical walk that is hard to watch, but he looks uncomfortable in the stereotypical Holmes overcoats that he is wearing. Not only that, but while the coat is gray twill they apparently could not find a matching cap. So his cap is black and it looks shiny as if it were made of polyester. Whatever the cap was made of, it looked very new and artificial. Jeremy Brett occasionally wore those traditional outfits, but Brett did not have to dress-up like Sherlock Holmes in order to look the part. Frewer on the other hand is painful to watch. Even in the full "Holmes" outfit, he does not carry himself like Sherlock Holmes.
Frewer's cadaverous face grinning all the time as he spouts on and on in a very bad "Upper-Crust" British accent is painful to see and listen to. To say that Frewer is overacting is an understatement. After he finishes each sentence with some kind of nasal hum, he then sneers as if that were some kind of British trait. When I started watching this I thought it might be a comedy featuring Wishbone, the Jack Russell Terrier. I thought Frewer had been cast as some kind of foil for Wishbone. But sadly, there is no dog in this movie except for Frewer. Wishbone would have made this movie a lot better.
Not only does Frewer's version of Sherlock Holmes never stop talking (in that awfully artificial British nasal accent), but he is much to friendly and kind. Frewer is always smiling at the witnesses he talks to, and he is so polite and courteous that he could be teaching at a Charm School instead of being a Sleuth. Perhaps since this is a Hallmark Channel production, they are trying to make a children's version of Sherlock Holmes (Wishbone was better at that, too) that was kindler and gentler. Whatever the point of Frewer's interpretation of Sherlock Holmes, it is flatter than a pancake, and easily the worst version of Sherlock Holmes that I have ever seen (including the previous worst, by Charlton Heston).
Overall, the tone of this film is awful. It reminded me of a typical episode of Barnaby Jones or Murder She Wrote or Diagnosis Murder. All the suspects over-acted suspiciously and glared at the victims before they were killed. Holmes and Watson are explaining every clue to each other during the entire movie. Even on Murder She Wrote there is less exposition.
This Sherlock Holmes does not even compare very well to Jim Rockford of the Rockford Files and it is miles below Columbo. The awful dialog is probably the fault of the writer. It is obvious that who ever wrote this script has very little familiarity with Sherlock Holmes, especially the BBC version with Jeremy Brett. This movie has all of the atmosphere of an episode of Little House on the Prairie. The fact that the actors seem to be smirking when they enunciate their lines in their fake accents does not help.
The only minor bright spot is Ken Walsh who plays Doctor Watson with some dignity. Walsh does not ham it up compared to Frewer, and when he is often interviewing witnesses, his demeanor and conversational style are much more natural and credible. Unfortunately, the rest of the cast is amateurish, and the visual clues they give by glaring and making faces at each other (to show they are suspicious) is something that I had not seen in any modern movie.


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