Monday, October 19, 2009

The Hound of the Baskervilles


The Hound of the Baskervilles (2003)

**1/2

This is a newish BBC version of the classic spooky Holmes novel. Jeremy Brett and Edward Hartwicke are long gone as the central crime fight duo, and in their place are Richard Roxbourgh and Ian Hart, two guys you "kind of recognize" but can't place. Probably they had bit parts in Gosford Park or something...

I liked Roxborgh and Hart quite a bit, even if Watson has never been one of my favorite characters in fiction. Some of the nice Doyle wit is included though, and they banter pretty well.

Adaptations of stories as famous as this one are always a tricky business, as the director has to impart something while remaining faithfull to the text enough for the fanboys. Here, David Attwood went took the adventurous route: whole scenes are created (one lifted from another Holmes story) and the ending is quite changed. I think the attempt is to make it more Hollywood (read: violent) and so for Horrorthon's sake, there's some nice added gore.

Still, it's a fairly workmanlike production. A bit slow going early on, a bit of flash late. Not a bad way to spend an evening, but not particularly memorable either.

9 comments:

Landshark said...

Man, count the typos! Can you tell I was rushing this review so I could run off to class?

Johnny Sweatpants said...

Wow! The blog sure is active today and the Freeek hasn't even plunked her daily 15 reviews yet!

So Landshark did you watch the entire series? If so I think you should get bonus points. I was thinking of reviewing True Blood but I had to abort that show because the accents irritate me too much.

By the way Landshark, I totally stole your joke about Nascar racing and it was received with uproarious laughter. I felt kind of bad but not really.

Catfreeek said...

I love the classic film starring Basil Rathbone I guess I'll stick with that one, this one sounds pretty lame.

Octopunk said...

I don't know if anyone will beat Jeremy Brett (the thin version of him) in my book. Good choice, Landshark. A roundup of cinematic Holmes would be a good off-season project for this crowd.

DKC said...

Cause we have a lot of time for off season pursuits like that.

AC said...

so landshark, without giving anything away, did they keep the key twist from the novel?

Landshark said...

JSP, I think that was your brother's joke about NASCAR. Or maybe I've forgotten my own wit.

As for the series--this one was just a 2003 BBC movie (100 min) based on the stand alone Holmes novel Baskervilles. It's not related to the late 80s/early 90s BBC series starring Jeremy Brett, in which they produced hour-long versions of many of the original Doyle short stories. I think they did a film-length version of Baskervilles, as well. But yes, I did watch most/all of them back in the day. And I'll second Octo's recommendation. Actually, the Brett as Holmes series is probably in my top 10 of alltime favorite TV shows. So fucking meticulous and perfectly pitched.

AC, I'm trying to think of which twist you mean. There's one big one from the book that is downplayed to the point of not seeming like a "twist" so much as a normal plot element, but it's still there. I think that's the one you're talking about.

Johnny Sweatpants said...

You said "Yeah, car racing--wtf? Why not just take a lounge chair out to the interstate?", and I've been laughing ever since.

AC said...

thanks landshark! i'm pretty sure that's the one i mean.

Malevolent

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