Sherlock Holmes: 5 Awesome Performances And 5 That Sucked

4. James D'Arcy - Sherlock: Case Of Evil

A Case Of Evil is the point at which, in the early 2000s, there was the perhaps inevitable attempt to "sex up" Sherlock Holmes (before producers realised that an avowedly sexless, arrogant and judgmental Holmes might actually excite audience passions more). So, here we have a version of the famously cold, analytical detective as a dandyish young man, sleeping around and making impulse emotion-led decisions. Even as a sort of origin story of the character as we know him, this is a bold departure and one that the talent behind the camera and the casting utterly fails to justify. Even accounting for the story's desire to use a younger Holmes, D'Arcy looks and feels like a boy pretending to be a grown up. He comes across as petulant, whiny and just a little pathetic, rather than a man of great genius. D'Arcy and Vincent D'Onofrio have both earned themselves justifiable praise in the last year for their TV work for Marvel, but here, as Holmes and Moriarty, each is as dreadful as the other, trying to outdo each other in scenery chewing absurdity. The film was clearly intended to be the first in a series. More episodes did not follow.