Worst ever adaptation

I agree. Conan Doyle was not bothered about adaptations of his work (Cf the silent version of "The Lost World" to which he paid tribute in a filmed interview); but this must have had him spinning in his grave. In the novel, and in virtually all the other film versions, Beryl Stapleton survives; what was the point of killing her off like that? One can only speculate.

A film is a separate, distinct work of art. This adaptation, when viewed without minute-by-minute comparison to the text, or examination of minutia, is a fine work, with compelling characters and a plot informed by a high sense of urgency, and horror that is not the least comic-book. The location is exquisite (I believe the same that Doyle had used), and the hound a truly terrifying creature.

Most films fail in comparison to that first fine flush of the imagined world we create while reading -- try giving this film a chance to stand alone and you may have a profoundly different, and far more satisfying, experience.

Yes I was remembering how much I hated this adaptation. Truly horrendous. Though I think Rupert Everett was a marginally worse Holmes than Roxburgh.

If you had to predict what modern movie clichés would be added to this version, you'd probably hit them all—because the movie certainly does: CGI hound, lingering closeups of the gruesome corpses, lingering closeups of Holmes's drug use (the 1939 movie thought it was enough to have him cry out, "Oh, Watson, the needle!"), shock cuts accompanied by the sounds of pounding against a metal drum, arbitrary and cynical changes to the characters who suffer more depressing fates, and so on.

A movie adaptation doesn't necessarily need to stay faithful to a classic story, but it doesn't need to make pointless changes either. If I were remaking this story, I'd steal the best things from the previous adaptations and try to make it even more effective than before—not give it a modern spin. There's a reason we re-read the original story and re-watch the best movie versions.


...Justin

nicos 21-I guess you haven't seen some of the rathbone-bruce pics where
watson is portrayed as a bumbling fool;all for comic effect.

It's not the worse, try this;

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0068719/?ref_=nm_flmg_act_139