Very Cool!!!

I really wanted to like this movie. I feel terribly cynical trashing it, and that's why I'm giving it a middling 5. Actually, I'm giving it a 5 because there were some superb performances.

A film with more than the usual spoiler issues. Talking about it in any detail feels akin to handing you a gift-wrapped present and saying, "I hope you like it -- It's a thriller about a diabolical secret experiment."

Mostly, the movie is committed to the value of a good time.

Watched this film today while off work sick, and even in these circumstances where you normally wouldn't expect much, this film was a stinker. Every line of dialogue is delivered in a hammy, "Gor blimey guv'nor" attempt at an English accent. The actors are Canadian, and I think one or two attempted Welsh or Scottish accents, but they are all uniformly stilted and abysmal. The female lead's accent in particular is atrocious, she sounds more Russian than anything.The villains are caricatures, the plot is poorly explained, pyrotechnics during a gunfight are as convincing as using a cap gun, and every possible cliché has been lovingly adopted by the producers. In its defence, the costumes and sets are quite good and authentic.Matt Frewer (of Max Headroom fame) plays Holmes, and is annoyingly smug and twee in his portrayal of the famous detective. He over-enunciates every line, and hams it up at every opportunity.The use of mock-Indian music during every flashback is ridiculous and contrived.Overall, this is an abysmal film. It is like English pantomime, with ridiculous villains and over-the-top attempts at acting. Best avoided.

I bought the four movie mini series from my local DVD store. I didn't watch it for about 5 months. It sat on my table collecting dust. I threw out my back and had nothing to do but watch movies. When I popped this in i expected an okay movie. I was treated to a very humorous take on the classic character. When I read Sherlock I always had the vision of him prancing around baker street very restless. Doyle even refers to him as feline at several points. In my opinion there hasn't been a more fun version of Holmes done yet, though I haven't seen them all. Serious fans don't seem to enjoy it because of the humor brought to the film, yet in his stories Holmes always seems to be on top of things and has a very slight dry sense of humor which they magnified in this movie. All together a enjoyable film. In response to the person who thinks watson is too old, remember that watson had time to go to med school, finish it up and go to a war, come back and live in a bottle for a while before he met holmes who was still at school if i remember correctly.

The Sign of the Four was wonderfully filmed and excellently acted. Matthew Frewer has a new, fresh take on Holmes that is different from Jermey Bret's serious almost depressed character of Holmes. Frewer's Holmes knows he's smart and has a bit of fun with it. He makes jokes about other characters without them even knowing about it and he has a fun sense of "Yes I know I'm brilliant .... I'm Sherlock Holmes" to his acting. The character of Holmes is kept true to the original stories and the film has you intrigued with this Holmes character until the credits role. wonderful I would recommend the series to any one who enjoys Sherlock Holmes. Superb.

Myself,being a huge fan of vintage Detective Stories, namely Agatha Christies "Poirot",immaculately played by David Suchet, and of the detective in question here Sherlock Holmes,previously played with particular vim and vigour by Basil Rathbone,and later (albeit with perhaps a smidgen too much eccentricity) by the effervescent Jeremy Brett.Matt Frewers Holmes is quite frankly....a shambles.Although to be fair his fellow cast members do little to help the film to get off its knees.Particularly appalling were the two "actors",playing Miss Morstan and Inspector Jones,Sophie Lorain and Michel Perron respectively.I can say in all honesty,that throughout the entire length of this preposterous production that these two actors had about them an air of mystique,chiefly for the reason that I could'nt make head nor tail of their accents!!Inspector Jones, 'I presume' was supposed to be Scottish,well,his Scottish accent was risible,and made Mel Gibson's in Braveheart sound like an absolute triumph!!As for Miss Morstan,there were elements of French,English and American accents in her voice,and it seemed to fluctuate with each sentence,appalling.As for Holmes,the phrase "Camp as Christmas" would sum it up to a tee,Frewer is quite simply the worst Holmes ever to grace celluloid, whomever commissioned this dreadful film(and I see from his biog on this very website that a series of these films have been made with him cast as Holmes)should not have the distinction of working in film or television ever again.My rating * out of *****.And that is simply for the locations,which were quite authentic looking of that time I suppose.