Not being familiar with Arthur Conan Doyle's books (or any other adaptations of them), I was expecting 'Hound of the Baskervilles' to be a typical Agatha Christie-style mystery. But the characters are less ridiculous than in something like 'Poirot' and Holmes' detection is really quite conventional, he gathers evidence and tracks down his man in a logical, thorough manner: the crime is also quite believable. Holmes and Watson are both men of action as well as thought: Holmes is arrogant and would even risk letting a man die to prove his theories, while Watson is decent, far from a fool, but annoyed to be patronised by his master. Regardless of whether this is true to the book, it sounds like the basis for an interesting period police procedural.
Unfortunately the whole thing falls a bit flat: although it may be filmed as a thriller, there's a curious lack of tension throughout: no-one acts as if they are really scared or shocked at any point. Even Richard E. Grant is for once (by his standards) relatively understated: there's no terror to carry the film. And there's something curiously uncinematic about the way Holmes solves this crime. He seems to know who the villain is simply by having done some prior research - very rarely do his deductions actually follow from his observations, rather his conclusions are just periodically thrown at us as fact. What also doesn't help is the strange mixture of natural outdoor, studio, and computer-generated settings: the aim is presumably to increase the impact, but it has the opposite effect, as one struggles to believe in the composite geography.
In conclusion, 'The Hound of the Baskervilles' deserves some credit for rising above pantomime: but it's badly directed and dreadfully dull. A shame.
Unfortunately the whole thing falls a bit flat: although it may be filmed as a thriller, there's a curious lack of tension throughout: no-one acts as if they are really scared or shocked at any point. Even Richard E. Grant is for once (by his standards) relatively understated: there's no terror to carry the film. And there's something curiously uncinematic about the way Holmes solves this crime. He seems to know who the villain is simply by having done some prior research - very rarely do his deductions actually follow from his observations, rather his conclusions are just periodically thrown at us as fact. What also doesn't help is the strange mixture of natural outdoor, studio, and computer-generated settings: the aim is presumably to increase the impact, but it has the opposite effect, as one struggles to believe in the composite geography.
In conclusion, 'The Hound of the Baskervilles' deserves some credit for rising above pantomime: but it's badly directed and dreadfully dull. A shame.