Movie Review - Mr. Holmes

Mr. Holmes **½ (out of 5) (PG) Sherlock Holmes has been busier lately than when Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wrote the source novels, or while Basil Rathbone and others played him in a slew of films throughout the middle of the last century. We’ve seen the great detective as a precocious youth, in spoofs, and even moved to the present for one British TV series, and exported to New York in one of ours. So the circle of life apparently couldn’t close without Sir Ian McKellan’s portrayal of a geriatric Holmes solving one last crime that gnawed at the edges of his brilliant mind and failing memory for decades.

McKellan is masterful. The script is a reasonably suitable speculation on how this iconic character might have spent his final years, living small in a country cottage, tending his bees and trying to assemble a few fragments of information into an elusive answer with the help of an eager young apprentice. That support comes over the objections of the boy’s hovering mum, Laura Linney, who once again admirably deep-sixes her attractiveness for the sake of a role.

The script adds a few light touches and is suitable for all ages. In fact, the gentle tale just might make a new generation curious about this legendary figure. Holmes, not McKellan. Ian is real. And just as skilled in his field as Sherlock was in his. (7/17/15)