Rating: 
Summary: Hound dirt
Review: All I'm gonna say is: I wanted to like it, being a fan of both Holmes and the actors involved- but this movie stunk up my living room so bad I had to move out of my house.If you want a more "faithful" version try ANY other! Even the Rathbone version. Heck, even Peter Cushing didn't shoot cocaine in his version- something not even mentioned in the book. I have to go clean up the hound dirt in my living room. VIVE LE JEREMY BRETT!
Rating: 
Summary: Revisionist Holmes...
Review: First let me say that I really wanted to like this movie. The settings are perfect, and we see the famous Moor recounted in the original story as the rain-and-windswept barren wasteland it was intended to be. The casting of Dr. Mortimer, Stapleton and his wife, and the Barrymores is true to Doyle. And the Hound is as realistic and frightening as possible this side of ILM's special effects. Sadly, beyond these a few other trifles, the film fails due to its insistance on rewriting Doyle's penultimate Holmes mystery. The producers chose to heap on their own additional scenes while abridging Doyle's masterwork, tossing in a Christmas party and even a seance. Doyle's characters are radically altered, reworked, or their parts truncaded. Famous sequences in the book are reversed, condensed, or excised altogether. The ending leaves a great deal to be desired, too. Even the balance of the casting only serves to move things downhill. Actors Roxburgh and Hart are perhaps ten to twenty years too young to fill the roles of Holmes and Watson. Further, Roxburgh looks little or nothing like the Master Detective (a blonde Holmes?). And while Roxburgh can scrape by as Holmes (if the viewer is at the very least inattentive), Hart is a miserable Watson. I'm not sure if the blame is Hart's or the director's, but a whiney, adversarial Watson was simply more sauce for this already well-cooked goose. Worst of all is the portrayed drug use by Holmes, who, as anyone who has read the canon with the slightest detatchment knows, was something he only engaged in between cases and not during. The "real" Holmes always turned to his tobacco pipe when studying a problem. Here, he partakes of his seven percent solution on a regular basis. Ultimately, the movie simply does not touch the other film versions of the Baskerville mystery, despite the excellent locations and the fine supporting cast. Holmes purists will be furious with the film, and more forgiving fans of the inhabitants of a certain flat on Baker Street will likely be disappointed at best. The movie is yet another example of why reinventing a classic story to suit the annoying gorgon of revisionism rarely if ever works. A most nettlesome result to be sure.
Rating: 
Summary: Excellent adaptation
Review: This is one of the best adaptations of the famous Conan Doyle Sherlock Holmes book. It does take numerous liberties with the text but it's a handsomely mounted production featuring an excellent cast. Ian Hart is great as a more lively than usual Watson. Richard Roxburgh wouldn't have been my first choice as Holmes (co-star Richard E.Grant would have been my pick), but he does a fine job. The direction, costumes, lighting, special effects and excellent location work combine to make for a great looking production. The DVD itself is well worth purchasing. The widescreen transfer and audio are excellent, and the various interviews and 'making of' feature are informative. I mark this down one star because of the scriptwriter choosing to include Holmes' drug use. It doesn't add anything to the story and I assume that it was only added to be controversial. Holmes did not use drugs during a case...the character only succumbed to the needle to relieve his boredom between cases, and I don't recall his drug use being part of the original novel. At least we get to see Watson's disgust with Holmes' habit, but it doesn't excuse including it in this adaptation.
Rating:
Summary: I'm sorry I watched it
Review: This is an unsatifying version of Hound. First, Richard Roxburgh is a fine actor but he's no Sherlock Holmes. His version of the great detective is a cold man who doesn't really care about Sir Henry at all. He's only in it for the thrill of the chase and almost gets the baronet killed. Watson's portrayal wasn't bad. The "real" Dr. Watson of the books was no fool but the chemistry between the actors just wasn't there. The Watson of this movie found Holmes to be a maddening companion.
The villain was quite good but the hound was a terrible mistake. They should've used a real animal. This computer animated creature looked like it cost five dollars to create it.
Bottom line: rent this movie or catch on PBS. Don't waste your money buying it.
Rating:
Summary: Ripoff
Review: There have been many versions of "The Hound" since it was first filmed in Germany in 1914. This isn't the worst but it's certainly the sleaziest, since it takes Ernest Pascal's screenplay for the 1939 version and merely "updates" it with dreadful dialogue. Fresh? Thrilling? Fuhgeddaboutit. Richard Roxburgh is a dull, unconvincing Holmes, and Ian Hart is a laughably bad Dr. Watson -- he plays him "tough," but like George W. Bush strutting around in a flight suit, it's not exactly convincing. By the time the Hound, a CGI relative of Scooby Doo, shows up, you'll be lunging for the remote.
Rating: 
Summary: Pretty disappointing to be honest.
Review: After so many re-makes, I can't blame the makers of this film for wanting to try adding new twists to the Conan Doyle storyline. What I do blame them for, however, is casting a Holmes who is a complete nonentity, totally lacks any kind of on-screen presence. And do they think scenes of him beating up cabbies and shooting up somehow excuse those flaws? Holmes took drugs, yes, but only to relieve boredom when he wasn't working on a case. Henry also lacks character, it has to be said, just comes across as a stereotype rude American. Thankfully the intelligent Watson and scheming Stapleton are much better. The film has some genuinely good scenes, and the hound is a truly disturbing creation. Overall, this is worth seeing if you're a fan of the story, but I'd recommend searching for the far superior Richardson and Cushing versions.
Rating:
Summary: Disappointing, My Dear Watson
Review: After Jeremy Brett, any other Sherlock Holmes is likely to be considered a pale copy. In this case, there is nothing in this production that was not done far better in the Brett version. In contrast to Brett's wonderful quirkiness, Richard Roxburgh is curiously colorless. Watson is similarly undistinguished and also suffers from looking far too young to have been through what Watson had by the time he met Holmes and began their famous relationship. Besides the weakness of the main characters, the production suffers from the obvious implication that the people who made it were woefully ignorant of the source work. The dialogue is far too modern (as when Holmes says "I could MURDER a bottle of Montrachet," or Watson explains that "Parties are not Holmes's thing.") Such dialogue is straight out of the 1990s, not the 1890s. Anyone who reads Doyle's original stories will know that Holmes and Watson were in a sense soulmates. They shared a friendship (more than that, really; a nonsexual devotion that was perhaps unique to men of the Victorian Age) that this production misses entirely; in fact, Watson at one point declares that he does not trust Holmes. Such a feeling would have made the famous Holmes-Watson relationship impossible. In this production, Holmes has been turned into a hopeless cocaine addict. Anyone who has read the original stories knows that Holmes would never have used cocaine during a case; he was in fact known to fast during a case, because he did not want the requirements of digestion to hamper his mental efforts. He would have found the idea of shooting up during an investigation repugnant. Rather, the [chemical substance] was his escape from the boredom he experienced between cases. In the advertisements for the production, much was made of the computer-generated hound. Unfortunately, the beast suffers from LOOKING like a computer animation. Aside from that, the animal is simply too much -- too large, too evil-looking. If the explanation for the hound had been supernatural, its appearance would have been very appropriate. But it is entirely wrong for a NATURAL creature. In trying to impart an air of dreariness and gloom to the moors of Dartmoor, the production probably succeeds too well -- so well that it is difficult to imagine anyone actually living there by choice. The Brett version, by comparison, has wonderful cinematography of the moors lit in the golden glow of an autumn sun; it is a place I would like to visit -- a claim I cannot make of the locale seen in this "Hound." A few small points: In an apparent (and ill-advised) attempt to get away from some of the Holmes "cliches," this production turns him into solely a cigarette smoker. Holmes's preferred method of using tobacco was the pipe; Doyle says so, all other productions show that, and to change it is to change Holmes's character. (Speaking of which, I found the production's desire to turn Holmes into some sort of Victorian Mannix, in his handling of the cabby who transported the villain in London, utterly out of character. Holmes knew how to get information amiably, without violence; he seldom had to bash his informants about.) Also, this production shows Baker Street unpaved. Holmes lived in London, not Dodge City; if even the slums of Whitechapel were cobblestoned, a respectable neighborhood like Baker Street certainly would have been. If you want a first-class version of "Hound of the Baskervilles," get the Brett version. If you want a very good version, get the Rathbone version or even the Hammer Films version. All have one thing in common: They are better than this one.
Rating: 
Summary: Incredible
Review: I've been a die-hard Sherlock Holmes fan for a long time, and I have to admit when I first heard about this version I was quite skeptical. However, upon actually watching this movie, I was thrilled! Richard Roxburgh gave an excellent performance as Holmes, and Ian Hart was equally wonderful as Watson. Granted, the story did vary slightly from Doyle's original, but even if you all ready know the original story it doesn't detract from the enjoyment of watching it. I would highly recommend it to anyone.
Rating:
Summary: Eccentric Flop
Review: Why can't filmmakers trust the author (cf. Coppolla's ill-thought "Dracula")? Doyle was a craftsman; the Hound of . . . is arguably his most gripping and fascinating Holmes narrative; the Rathbone/Bruce version holds up beautifully; Hammer's Cushing/Lee outing, though lurid, is a delight; Jeremy Brett's BBC presentation is true to the core; but this latest entry is infuriating; Richard Roxburgh's Holmes verges on the sluggish (and I hold with the other discerning reviewer who cites the wrong-headedness of writing in a Holmes who used cocaine while on a case; apparently no one on the scriptwriting team read Doyle too closely), Hart's Watson testy and offputting, and black-hearted Stapleton -- here the always wonderful Richard Grant -- is far more appealing than the two leads; so much of this version just bogs -- the opening scene in Baker Street, for example, with Dr. Mortimer, a thrilling narrative in nearly every other filmed Hound, lies as flat as Roxburgh's line delivery. Don't engage this Holmes -- take a hansom cab to the real Baker Street where Rathbone, Cushing and Brett are enshrined. This is Road-show Doyle -- and he, as well as, Holmes, deserve 1st-class bookings. Always.
Rating:
Summary: faulty technical quality
Review: Two samples of this DVD refused to play in my Onkyo player. They did play in my Macintosh computer. This is the only DVD out of several hundred that refuses to play on the Onkyo. This version of the story can best be described as "drive in movie." There are numerous graphic scenes of gore, violence, and slow deaths. The original detective story has been transformed into a horror story with the usual tricks to frighten the viewer. The dialog makes the characters seem to be teenagers in adult bodies.
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