‘Young Sherlock’ Review: Guy Ritchie’s Amazon Series Is Dumb Fun That’s More Dumb Than Fun

The next time Guy Ritchie makes a smart movie or television show will be the first, but he’s built a deservedly lengthy career from flashy projects that sometimes create alchemy out of fun and dumb.

When Ritchie is good, the balance is more toward the “fun” side of the ledger. When Ritchie is bad, the balance is more toward the “dumb” side. Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch? Fun Ritchie. Swept Away and Aladdin? Dumb Ritchie. The Man from U.N.C.L.E.? Fun Ritchie, then Dumb Ritchie, all in one. On the small screen? The Gentlemen is Fun Ritchie, MobLand is Dumb Ritchie.

Ritchie is so committed to fun and dumb that even when he took on Sherlock Holmes, Arthur Conan Doyle’s compulsively brainy gumshoe, he turned Holmes and Watson into Victorian pugilists, one of whom occasionally used deductive reasoning. The first Sherlock Holmes movie is Fun Ritchie (barely) and the second is Dumb Ritchie.

The eight-episode Young Sherlock, airing on Amazon, tends more toward the dumb side of the ledger.

Developed by Ritchie and Peter Harness, created by Matthew Parkhill, Young Sherlock claims Andrew Lane’s Young Sherlock Holmes novels as its adaptive source. Well, if Lane’s books were prequels to Doyle’s works only in the loosest of ways and this series is adapted from Lane’s books only in the loosest of ways, at some point there ceases to be any resemblance to the character who has been known and beloved for nearly 140 years. Young Sherlock only resembles the brand when it makes the most direct of references to the brand, which is also when Young Sherlock is most annoying.

Set at some indeterminate point in the 18-whatevers, Young Sherlock begins with 19-year-old Sherlock (Hero Fiennes Tiffin) at London’s Newgate Prison, locked away for pickpocketing and general insolence. On the verge of getting pummeled by a fellow inmate, Sherlock gets whisked away by his brother Mycroft (Max Irons, in a role that perfectly utilizes his tendency toward the wooden), a buttoned-down civil servant who says he’s secured a place for Sherlock in Oxford. That does not mean that Mycroft has gotten Sherlock INTO Oxford. Instead, the brilliant but undisciplined Sherlock has to work as an assistant to a school porter, the sort of thing that would teach the budding genius humility except that it’s part of the plot for perhaps 15 minutes at most.

Sherlock is working in janitorial services at Oxford exactly long enough to pull a Will Hunting. Not something resembling a Will Hunting. Sherlock literally sneaks into a math classroom after hours and attempts to solve an equation, where he’s found and befriended by James Moriarty (Dónal Finn), a character Sherlock Holmes fans know will eventually become Holmes’ adversary, but for now is an equally brilliant peer who has what Sherlock Holmes lacks: the ability to punch people in the face. Once again, Ritchie has decided the most exciting and fulfilling way to handle Sherlock Holmes is to focus on the legendary detective punching people or, in this case, learning to.

Zzz.

Wait. Sorry. Where was I?

Oh right. Sherlock and Moriarty. Buddies!

Soon, the buddies will be on the run, accused of nothing less than murder as part of the season-long arc involving a Chinese princess (Zine Tseng, fairly effective in a thinly crafted role), a cabal of academics known as Apostles, a plot for global domination and — coincidence of coincidences — Sherlock’s traumatic family history, which includes an institutionalized mother (Natascha McElhone), a generally absent father (Joseph Fiennes) and a dead sister.

This all relates to the gloriously named, hilariously underwritten Sir Bucephalus Hodge (Colin Firth, who, I can only assume, owed somebody money or a favor), arriving at Oxford with fetching assistant Edie (newcomer Holly Cattle, guaranteed to get work out of this, if nothing else) and a colonialist agenda.

For a few episodes, the first two directed by Ritchie, Young Sherlock is generally entertaining enough. The opening episodes establish high production values in recreating period Oxford — it’s a non-surprise that Ritchie has absolutely nothing to say about the cultural context, and I’m not going to say another word about how wholly lacking in perspective the show is — and steer alternately into zaniness and references.

The zaniness is predictable enough Ritchie stuff: lots of characters playing dress-up — at various points Moriarty and Sherlock are dressed as cops, washerwomen and more — and lots of fleeing from actual authorities accompanied by the high-energy modern soundtrack. Sometimes there are fights, with the running joke being that Sherlock Holmes doesn’t know how to fight and therefore gets punched in the face. I have no idea why this is an aspect of the story Ritchie and Parkhill have chosen to latch onto, other than that “Sherlock Holmes needs to learn how to fight” offers more drama than “Sherlock Holmes needs to learn to refine his skills of deductive reasoning,” especially since almost nothing that Holmes does intellectually across eight episodes is even slightly inspired. But there’s a Chinese princess and she does martial arts! Fight! Fight!

The zaniness is entertaining. The references are aggressively half-hearted pandering. OK, the Moriarty stuff isn’t exactly half-hearted. It’s full-hearted. Unfortunately, it isn’t all that amusing. Finn plays the character at full volume from the beginning, and even if we have to wait a couple of hours for hints that Moriarty might eventually become evil, he’s almost instantly annoying and a woefully unsuited companion for a character who comes ready-made with one of the most successful foils in all of fiction. Watson is nowhere to be seen here — and the contrast Watson offers to Sherlock as a character is badly needed when the alternative is Moriarty being played as “Sherlock Holmes, Only Louder.” It isn’t Finn’s fault that Moriarty is written with so little consideration, but nor does he find ways to improve the situation.

There are nods to various Holmesian catch phrases. When a copper shows up to investigate things, you know he’s going to be named “Lestrade.” And at some point, in a hat shop named “M. Parkhill” after the series creator, Holmes tries on a deerstalker hat and Moriarty quips, “If you start wearing a hat like that, I will no longer be friends with you.”

It’s at this point that, if television shows could be slapped and I were the type of person who slapped people or television shows, I would have slapped this pathetic Muppet Babies excuse for a prequel.

Oddly or fortunately, the quipping downshifts dramatically from that point — gotta leave Baby Sherlock’s nascent interactions with Baby Watson and Baby Irene Adler for future seasons.

Instead, the focus becomes the rewriting of Sherlock Holmes’ youth, focusing on his parents and dead sister. Sherlock Holmes plays no meaningful part in this rewriting, and we can’t really tell how the tragedy shaped him, because he’s been written in such a fuzzy way that I can’t tell you who Young Sherlock even wants to say Sherlock Holmes is as a human. And yes, just as the writing leaves Finn playing a Moriarty who’s unformed and unlikable, it leaves Tiffin playing a Sherlock who’s unformed and…fine? This isn’t one of those series that chooses a psychological lane that will have fans of the brand unhappy and confrontational. This Sherlock is smart and periodically mopey, but he isn’t a compelling character on any level.

The backstory with the Holmes family, which features fine work from McElhone, completely usurps the plot with the princess at midseason. For three episodes it’s like, “Holmes needs to clear his name and save the princess or the world might possibly end or something!” and then there are multiple episodes that just forget the main plot, in which everything not related to people named “Holmes” becomes irrelevant. The middle of the season isn’t just dumb, it’s dull and overextended.

But then the show picks up again for the last two episodes, which hop around the globe, feature various twists and come close to salvaging the rest of the series. Sherlock is never given a brain worth delving into — sometimes the show tries to find ways to visualize Sherlock’s mental machinations; other times, it seems the consensus was “What’s the point?” — and I never bought into Holmes/Moriarty as a doomed relationship worth investing in, but after the slog of the midseason, the story resumes a fast pace.

Is there a six-episode series that could have told the story without losing momentum? Yes! Is there a 100-minute movie that could have done the same? Probably! Am I willing to watch future seasons to see if Ritchie and Parkhill can eventually develop this Sherlock Holmes into a man who connects in any way to the Arthur Conan Doyle character? Maybe a little. It’s the magic of Ritchie’s dumb/fun equation that he’s so often able to add at least amusement to his dumbest stories. So I guess that’s something.