SIR IAN MCKELLEN is Sherlock Holmes! It should be a crowning role in the great theatrical knight's career: awards and honours ahoy. Alas, it has not quite worked out like that.
Mr Holmes is a surprisingly dreary and unexciting portrait of the legendary detective in his twilight years as he struggles to reconcile himself to his fading powers and a half-remembered final case which prompted his early retirement.
Based on the novel A Slight Trick of The Mind by Mitch Collins, there is nothing wrong with the central premise. How would Sherlock Holmes spend his retirement? It's an intriguing question. One assumes bowling and bingo would be out. So too solving the mystery of the neighbours missing cat.
As it turns out the last mystery Holmes has to unlock concerns the human heart. As he confronts his own mortality the great rational mind must face up to the complex swirl of human emotions: love, loneliness, fear.
Alas, these valid themes fail to be animated with any zip, panache or, ironically, emotion due to a dry, slow-moving story and a portrait of Holmes that robs the great man of his allure and mystique.
This is not McKellen's fault: playing Holmes as a 93-year-old and, in flashbacks, a man 30 years younger he is commanding and regal with a sly wit. The problem is a dull screenplay that fails to make a virtue of cutting Holmes down to size.
Directed by Bill Condon, who collaborated more successfully with McKellen in the Oscar nominated Gods and Monsters, the picture looks fine with some lovely Sussex landscapes and it's always a pleasure to watch McKellen. The problem is the story. Elementary, really.
Mr Holmes is a surprisingly dreary and unexciting portrait of the legendary detective in his twilight years as he struggles to reconcile himself to his fading powers and a half-remembered final case which prompted his early retirement.
Based on the novel A Slight Trick of The Mind by Mitch Collins, there is nothing wrong with the central premise. How would Sherlock Holmes spend his retirement? It's an intriguing question. One assumes bowling and bingo would be out. So too solving the mystery of the neighbours missing cat.
As it turns out the last mystery Holmes has to unlock concerns the human heart. As he confronts his own mortality the great rational mind must face up to the complex swirl of human emotions: love, loneliness, fear.
Alas, these valid themes fail to be animated with any zip, panache or, ironically, emotion due to a dry, slow-moving story and a portrait of Holmes that robs the great man of his allure and mystique.
This is not McKellen's fault: playing Holmes as a 93-year-old and, in flashbacks, a man 30 years younger he is commanding and regal with a sly wit. The problem is a dull screenplay that fails to make a virtue of cutting Holmes down to size.
Directed by Bill Condon, who collaborated more successfully with McKellen in the Oscar nominated Gods and Monsters, the picture looks fine with some lovely Sussex landscapes and it's always a pleasure to watch McKellen. The problem is the story. Elementary, really.