Reviews

As far as softcore porn movies go, this one is actually quite nice. It has attractive actors (well maybe except Paul Case), which is always a plus in this kind of movies. Acting is of course a bit wooden, but we don't watch this for the acting, do we? Plotwise the movie is rather fun, because the plot features some kind of soul/personality swapping thing. Mitch (Kevin Patrick's character) knocks over Dirk (Paul Case's character) with his car. They then magically swap souls, i.e. Mitch is now Dirk. Mitch features Dirk's character (including a sleazy Southern accent) and as he was a jerk, Mitch is now a jerk, too. During the following sex scenes a few more soul swaps take place, and consequently Dirk's soul travels across almost the whole cast. Now this is the point when I started to get confused. I tried to make sense of it as follows: Mitch with Dirk's soul has sex with Lisa (Tiffany Tyler) and they swap, so Mitch has now Lisa's soul and Lisa has Dirk's soul. So far so good. But then Lisa with Dirk's soul has sex with Sean (Rocco Reed) and they swap souls, so Sean has now Dirk's soul and Lisa has Sean's soul. But now it starts to become confusing: Alex (Kiara Diane) has an amulet which makes this whole soul swapping business stop and while having sex with Sean (with Dirk's soul) she manages to make Dirk's soul leave Sean. So Sean is now himself again. But wait a sec - hasn't got Lisa Sean's soul? And Mitch has still Lisa's soul? I have contemplated this existential question and came to the conclusion that there are only two possibilities: Either the amulet transferred all souls into their appropriate bodies or I am trying to make sense of something that is not supposed to make sense. Probably the latter.

Final verdict: I had fun watching this.

This film noir has it all. A lot of wonderful night shots, shadows which are used as a filming technique and also symbolically darken the life of Robinson's character. Bennett gives us a superb femme fatale who only differs from some of the other famous femme fatales of the period in the way that she is not self-motivating. The criminal energy lies to a large extent in her boyfriend and for the majority of the movie she merely plays along. As a matter of course the end of a film noir is never really surprising. The production code made sure that every character who is portrayed as "bad" or criminal gets their due punishment and so we know that Christopher Cross will not get away either.

In two scenes in the movie the gramophone record is getting stuck at one and the same spot during a love song, repeating the word "love" over and over. I found this a great way of implying that what love may be felt by the characters (Kitty towards Johnny and Christopher towards Kitty) will ultimately lead nowhere and only to their doom.

OK, maybe I'm missing something here....but I rather think I'm not. Let me get this straight; this is a nice action/disaster movie on the surface. As other commentators have put it, well-worn plot with meteorites about to hit earth and only a couple of days to save civilisation. I am not American, mind, but for an American movie I do see some racial stereotypes repeated over and over here. What we see is a black fanatic church leader making a point of racism in the U.S. So far so good. Further, we see the stereotypical black criminal played by Ice-T. Of course they hate each other because one killed the other's family, but in the end you have what the white audience expects: Two black guys trying to kill each other. Of course the ones that are really concerned with saving earth are the white U.S. military, the white scientist and the white, blonde, female FBI agent. Reese is portrayed as more or less only being concerned with his vengeance. The mole in the military is a white assistant to the general and, everyone else save one in the military staff being white, there's one black guy whom we are supposed to suspect.

OK, maybe I'm taking that too seriously for a cheapie video production but I think you don't have to make it THAT obvious. On a superficial level I did enjoy this movie. There was some OK action although the special effects creating the asteroid hitting San Francisco (at least they spared New York this time which was probably already destroyed a dozen times) can probably be reproduced on a home PC. When I thought about it further the above mentioned reservations spoiled it a bit for me.

I suppose you have to put this into perspective - after all it is a TV production - but I wasn't too convinced of this adaptation; the Granada one with Jeremy Brett is infinitely better. I'm sure budget restraints have kept the producers from including a flashback in order to show the actual background behind the storyline. And yet I feel that especially in this story the flashback is an important means to enable you to appreciate the character Jonathan Small's thirst for revenge.

Cushing as Holmes is OK but what he definitely lacks is the unconventional air and the charisma that surrounds someone like Jeremy Brett. He does his job solidly enough, though.

Wontner is not my favourite Holmes; to me he seems a bit nondescript altogether. The storyline of this movie of course is well-known and follows, if not exactly but pretty closely the story of the same name in the canon. There is just a whiff of EMPTY HOUSE in it, with Col. Moran using the famous air gun on Holmes. What's a bit odd is the inclusion of Sir Henry Baskerville (presumably because the story is set in Dartmoor) and what's even weirder is Baskerville's adult daughter who has a minor role in the story (but where's Beryl I wonder? Or maybe she isn't the mother....). Then of course we have the omnipresent and stereotypical Professor Moriarty (who was given the first name 'Robert' **ROFL**!!!) but I think he doesn't come across very convincingly. All in all watchable but average.

Now, I just watched this movie and while it is still one of the better SH movies I have watched, I still give it only 9 out of 10 because (SPOILERS! SPOILERS!) firstly Mycroft Holmes was so terribly slim and good-looking (in contrary to the canon) and secondly Cadogan West was actually the criminal and thirdly they even dared to combine the SCANDAL IN BOHEMIA and BRUCE-PARTINGTON!! OK OK, I won't be too harsh. It's a great movie and showed SH with a genuinely human side. Without so much as saying it he actually fell in love with Irene Adler who was a criminal (which is also not according to the canon, I might add), but who would Sherlock Holmes be more likely to fall in love with anyway? Watson was very cool IMHO. He was miles and miles and miles away from Bruce's Watson and that's saying a lot (I never liked Bruce as Watson but Rathbone is the KING)! One of the smaller things that struck me was the incredibly fake looking "Baker Street" sign towards the end of the film.

All in all it's a very cool SH movie (apart from Mycroft!). I simply loved Matt Frewer this time.