Review of The Seven-Per-Cent Solution

Refreshing, original take on the Holmes Canon. I've heard the main actor was miscast but seeing him running around frenetically in a ratty smoking robe, issuing Sherlock's famous speech about Moriarty (which DOES sound paranoid when you think about it), he gives a true, spontaneous version which is lacking in other Holmes departures. While Holmes meets Jack the ripper in 2 other movies, his character never comes alive as in this movie. Even Peter Cushing as Sherlock in "Hound of the Baskervilles" can't compete. Robert Duvall seems wasted as Watson who has only 6 lines in the movie. Lawrence Olivier is a twin for Moriarty, but strangely doesn't look younger in a 30 year flashback. My only complaint is that upon repeated viewings the climactic train chase seems overlong. I think Conan Doyle would be proud: though he might have been mildly addicted to cocaine and broken his addiction, and thus has Watson proclaiming the same for Holmes, ("he cured himself"), the movie (and novel it's based on) fills a dramatic gap. And Holmes is more a hero for it, battling inner and outer foes (his addiction as well as a mystery).