Reception
Roger Ebert gave the film 3/4 stars. Christopher Null of Filmcritic.com called the film "great fun".
Reviewing the film for New York Times, Leslie Bennetts called it "a lighthearted murder mystery that weds Sir Arthur Conan Doyle to the kind of rollicking action-adventure that has made Steven Spielberg the most successful movie maker in the world".
DVD Verdict stated that the film was both "a reimagining of the detective's origin story, but it is also respectful of Arthur Conan Doyle's work" and "a joy from beginning to end."
R.L. Shaffer writing for IGN felt the film "doesn't hold up all that well" and that ultimately "the film shall remain a cult classic – loved by some, but forgotten by most."
Pauline Kael wrote, "This sounds like a funnier, zestier piecure than it turns out to be.... As long as the movie stays within the conceits of the Holmesian legends, it's mildly, blandly amusing. But when one of the imperilled old men gives an elaborate account of the background of the villainy... your mind drifts and you lose the plot threads. And when the picture forsakes fog and coziness and the keenness of Holmes' intellect – when it starts turning him into a dashing action-adventure hero – the jig is up.... the movie lets you down with a thump when Holmes and his companions enter a wooden pyramid-temple hidden under the London streets.... There's a resounding hollowness at the center of this picture – Levinson's temple of doom".
Read more about this topic: Young Sherlock Holmes
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