Good concept, poorly executed.

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

You open with an airplane that has an actor pulling off a poor Jerry Lewis impersonation, doing the forgetful Jewish stereotype, that's so boring and annoying you wonder if you should even continue watching it. Underneath you have the terrible underscoring with the music just going DUN DUN ... DUN DUN ... DUN DUN over and over and over again (and this is coming from me -- a film and TV score lover).You stick with it and instead of being rewarded, you are tortured by a poorly written, poorly delivered, and badly executed scene of a mis-cast United States President talking to advisers. That's six minutes of your life. During the next minute what happened in the opening is finally addressed and the plot is starting to advance. It's painful, it's mental torture, it goes on for almost eight full minutes. But, you stick with it because John Cleese is in it and other reviewers praise it. And he must be in it, because he was seen riding a bicycle during the opening credits music.FINALLY, thirteen freaking minutes into the fifty-five minutes long special, Cleese actually joins the film already in progress. Oh yes, there's nothing better than seeing one of three people the film is about, not actually do anything but ride a bicycle in the opening credits, until thirteen minutes later. By the way, he doesn't even speak until about fifteen minutes in. After all, the last thing we want to hear is the main star of the film speak words.Twenty-one minutes in it tells us we've reached the conclusion of Part I, and by that point almost nothing has been accomplished.Another eleven minutes later and Part II has ended and we know almost nothing more than we learned in the first part.And when Part III ends, you find out there was no actual serious plot, that the whole thing was filler jokes and skits leading to no resolution of everything we were told and ending in rear-end squeaker.There is so much un-earned and undeserved padding in this special that you could probably trim it down to ten minutes, and even then it would still be awful and not funny.There are so many bad jokes and poorly executed ones. Not a single laugh in this whole hour of misfires. The premise was't bad, the idea of Cleese as Sherlock Holmes's grandson (following in Holmes footsteps) hunting his old nemesis in modern times has potential, some of the casting was good, and there were little skits that had the potential to be funny if they had been done right, but overall I found myself struggling to watch it, skimming small parts, and wishing a giant foot would slam down and tell us it was now time for something completely different.The score is unremarkable and at times boring when even there. I wonder why there was even a score, as it was heard so little and did nothing to enhance the struggling mess.And there are bad edits, film and sound wise.This is terrible and deservedly forgotten.

John Cleese as Sherlock Holmes, actually his grandson, but all the same. The descendant of Professor Moriarty is threating to destroy civilization as we know it. And that's it I guess. John Cleese even irritated me, I was like "Hey pal, why you doing that, to me and to yourself, stop it!" Arthur Lowe as extremely unintelligent Dr. Watson is great. Considering it has not plot, the film should be funny. And it's not, and how it's not! Unbelievably unfunny, it gives the new meaning to unfunny. There's the unfunny so bad it's funny again, there's unfunny so bad that I feel embarrassment, there's unfunny that's irritating. This is weird, no emotion was awaken in me whatsoever. It's so unfunny I think it might be funny in the same unspecified way. There are a couple of racist jokes that are interesting to hear. Maybe a joke or two were regularly funny. The rest is weird. Poirot, James Bond i Columbo have some small screen time also, played by random actor of course. Only things that partially make this movie worthwhile are Arthur Lowe as Dr. Watson and Connie Booth in sexy leather black suit and with a gun.

I enjoyed this short film and recommend it to all who enjoy Cleese doing what he does best. Arthur Lowe's portrayal of a bumbling Dr. Watson is great as is Connie Booth's Mrs. Hudson. The plot is similar to that of the higher budget 1976 comedy film Murder By Death in that a gathering of famous detectives is empaneled to solve a crime. It differs in that Cleese and company depend more on sight gags than on a clever script. (At least one gag was lifted nearly intact from the the earlier film.) Another difference is that MBD's detectives come from literature's mystery genre and this film's detectives come from American television of that era.This film pokes good fun at a variety of world cultures with special emphasis on the USA. (Perhaps I am being overly sensitive.) I recommend that those unfamiliar with either film watch The Strange Case before viewing Murder By Death to avoid being mildly distracted by the similarities as I was.

No laughs whatsoever. Yes, I watched this entire train wreck but only so that I wouldn't later wonder if Cleese had come to his senses in the latter part. (No, he had not.) This may be historically interesting to you youngsters out there, to see that British "humor" included black "jokes" like these, thirty years ago. What amazes me even more though, is to read the other reviewers' comments, which acknowledge this isn't very good, yet then turn around and give it high votes. If the vast majority of the comedies that you have seen are even much worse than this one, then I certainly pity your torturous existences. The humor level of this show appears aimed at little kids, yet the subject matter does not. So who is this for? People who enjoy repeated & drawn-out double-takes, pratfalls, drug jokes (interesting only as a short trip back to '77), and other "low" humor. The Three Stooges are still funny, and were to me as a kid, too. THEY exerted some effort in making jokes work. This however is sloughed off schlock. I fear that it IS the end of civilization, if this stuff really is accepted as worthwhile. Next you'll be telling me that tabloid TV is popular. :(