CAPSULE: Mr Holmes (2015, Dir. Bill Condon)

Thirty years after he hung up his (Watson-imagined) deerstalker, a time-ravaged Sherlock Holmes attempts to piece together his memories of the case that ended his career and saw him whittling down his days in self-imposed exile.

Mr Holmes is a second go round for director Bill Condon and senile-old-man extraordinaire, Sir Ian McKellen, after their memorable team up on Frankenstein/Whale project, Gods and Monsters. The craft is still apparent, even more finely honed, but this second film feels like a retread, only slower and more deliberate.

McKellen is fabulous again (as always) as the losing-his-edge practitioner, infatuated with a more vital muse (this time a young acolyte, played with gusto by Milo Parker) and sparring with a cantankerous housemaid (a rather lacklustre Laura Linney, which is a shame).

Holmes' slow mental degradation gives the film its multi-threaded narrative, with screenwriter Jeffrey Hatcher navigating the detective's case in 1920s London, a recent trip to post-WWII Japan and his convalescence on the English Channel.

Unfortunately, on all fronts the film struggles with both pacing and a rather shaky relationship to Holmes as a creation and a (supposedly) real life figure. The one compounds the other, with the film's extended contemplation time exposing the lack of depth in Condon and Hatcher's presentation of its fictionalised fiction premise. It just doesn't stand up to in-depth investigation. I'm sure Sherlock wouldn't have approved.

Mr Holmes is impeccably crafted cinema; it is a masterclass in textured characterisation from McKellen; it is just not all that compelling. "Worthy" more than worthwhile.

★★★

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