Sherlock: Case Of Evil is a 2002 made for TV movie with James D'Arcy as Sherlock Holmes. The movie is written by Piers Ashworth who wrote the recent St Trinian's films and the 2010 film Burke And Hare. I like the previous two but didn't like B&H as much. It's directed by Graham Theakston who's other TV work includes episodes of Blue Murder, The Bill, New Tricks and The Tripods. I didn't like The Tripods much at all, I could only watch a couple of episodes before I gave up, but that was mostly the writing. I liked New Tricks the best of that bunch of shows. Theakston retired in 2007 and passed away last year.
That's James in the deer stalker and over on the left is a little picture of Roger Morlidge who plays Doctor Watson. Vincent D'Onofrio plays Professor Moriarty. We decided it's an alternate universe version of Sherlock, since much of the Holmes canon is changed or ignored. Watson preforms autopsies for the police and he hasn't meet Sherlock when the movie starts. The movie starts with the clash of steel and the crash of a gunshot as Sherlock and Moriarty square off in the streets of London which is being played by Bucharest in Romania. Sherlock fights Professor Moriarty with his cane sword. Sherlock pulls a pistol and shoots the Professor who falls into a convenient sewer opening. Of course his body is nowhere to be found.
Inspector Lestrade arrests Sherlock for shooting Moriarty but he lets him go. Sherlock talks to the papers and gets a jolt of fame. Watson and Sherlock become allies as a series of murders puts together. They figure out who's behind the crimes and you can probably guess who it is. Lestrade has mixed feelings about Sherlock's meddling but he does gain some advantages when Sherlock brings him a murderer and a drug smuggling ring. There is a nice shoot out at the warehouse at one point. More action than in a lot of Holmes films. Gabrielle Anwar plays an actress who has a sad role in the film, she's was hired by Moriarty's associates to trick Holmes, and then murdered when her death would be useful to Moriarty. Richard E Grant appears as Mycroft Holmes. He'd been made a morphine addict by Moriarty when Sherlock was 12 and he's suffered greatly in the time since. No wonder Holmes has such a fierce hatred of the man.
The production looks pretty good, the sets and locations are quite nice, and the script mostly moves the movie along. There's a draggy bit in the middle when Moriarty captures Sherlock and pumps him full of drugs. Holmes escapes and there's another draggy bit while Watson and Gabrielle get him off the junk. Without all those scenes the 90 minute movie would wind up being under 80 minutes. It was an interesting reworking of the character and I enjoyed it well enough. I think I would want to watch it again sometime.
I couldn't say the same thing about Shirome: Spirit of the Underworld. It's a 2010 Japanese horror mocumentary that just wasn't very good or interesting. It's written and directed by Kôji Shiraishi who appears in the film as a director who's making a TV program for the six members of Momoiro Clover. They're a real Japanese J-Pop group, all young and incredibly noisy. Kôji wants to make a TV program where the girls visit a haunted school. There's a painting of a butterfly on the wall that is supposed to grant wishes. We get a lecture from a boring guy with glasses. Of course the wishes are dangerous and a couple of kids hung themselves in the school. The girls are hesitant but they go into the school anyway. There's a lot of screaming and yelling and little happens. It's all pretty awful and then the director tells the girls they were punked. I wanted to punk that guy and by punked I mean kick him in the nuts for wasting that 83 minutes of my life. Sadly I wasn't able to fall asleep during the movie so I didn't miss anything. There's a link to the movie in the title so you might try falling asleep during the movie if you decide to take a chance.
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