Movie Review: The Hound of the Baskervilles (2000)

The movie stars Matt Frewer, Kenneth Welsh, Jason London, Emma Campbell and Gordon Masten.

I ended up recording this film off of one of my movie channels last week because I knew my wife had to work this past weekend and I figured I could watch it while waiting up for her. The movie turned out to be OK. But, it definitely wasn't one of the better Sherlock Holmes films I've watched.

I've read the book and seen several versions of this movie in the past. And, as a result of that, it was really hard to judge this film from a mystery standpoint, simply because I already knew the ending.

However, I will say this about the film, even though there were (as is often the case with movies) some liberties, the movie did stay reasonably true to the literary version of the story. This was something I did enjoy about it because I'm not a fan of movies that butcher classic works of literature.

I think my biggest complaint about this movie was the decision to cast Matt Frewer as Sherlock Holmes. I think he's an OK (though far from A-list) actor and have liked some of his other roles. However, I've always thought of him more as a supporting character actor and I don't think he carried the lead role as well as it needed to be carried.

I think part of the reason I wasn't a fan was his attempts to show Holmes' trademark arrogance came off a bit awkward, falling somewhere between over-acting and bad comedy. As a result of this, it was hard, at times, to take him seriously. I won't say he was the worst actor to play the role. But, he definitely wasn't as good as Basil Rathbone or even Robert Downey, Jr.

To be fair, however, the rest of the casting worked pretty well. Kenneth Welsh's Dr. Watson, while not the best I've seen, was still pretty decent and the rest of the supporting cast did their best to make the movie believable. I just wish they would have done a little better with Holmes.

The movie, overall, was OK. But, I think a poor casting choice for the lead role did keep the film from taking full advantage of a proven story and halfway decent script. In other words, it was OK but it wasn't anything special.

My Grade: C