With Young Sherlock Holmes, Spielberg handed direction over to Barry Levinson. Barry Levinson was then only known for modestly acclaimed films such as Diner (1982) and The Natural (1984) and had not matured into the refreshingly intelligent director that he would become over the next few years. Ahead for Levinson would be Good Morning Vietnam (1987), Rain Man (1988), Bugsy (1991), Sleepers (1996), Wag the Dog (1997) and occasional genre forays such as the wonderfully underrated offbeat fairytale Toys (1992) and the Michael Crichton adaptations Disclosure (1994), a thriller about workplace sexual harassment, and Sphere (1998) about the discovery of a UFO. Levinson worked from a script by Chris Columbus, who was then a writer for hire at Amblin and had also tuned the scripts for Gremlins and The Goonies (1985). Columbus would of course later become a director of some commercial success, albeit frustratingly bland output, with the likes of Home Alone (1990), Mrs Doubtfire (1993), Bicentennial Man (1999), Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (2001), Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002) and Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief (2010).

The biggest problem with Young Sherlock Holmes is that it is very much a Sherlock Holmes that has been worked over by Steven Spielberg and Industrial Light and Magic. It’s a Holmes that seems to owe more to Indiana Jones than it ever does to Arthur Conan Doyle. But under Barry Levinson’s hand, this is a marriage that works surprisingly well. As Holmes pastiches go, the story certainly lacks the inspiration of The Seven Per Cent Solution (1976) or even Murder By Decree (1979), but it is not a script without its graces, nor attention to the trivia of the mythos – the end credits even go so far as to painstakingly point out that according to Arthur Conan Conan Doyle, Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson never met until later life and this is but a fictionalisation of such a meeting. (Buffs should wait until the very end of the credits for a surprise appearance by Professor Moriarty). But the failing is equally that it is a film that is rooted in adventure more so than it ever is in deduction – Nicholas Rowe’s Holmes has a couple of scenes throughout bringing his razor-sharp brilliance to bear but, unlike any Conan Doyle story, the climax is not the unveiling of a whodunnit but a swordfight. And some of the revelations of the cult members’ identities seem contrived with a clumsiness that is most un-Doyle like.

On its own terms, Young Sherlock Holmes works beautifully. It is a gorgeously made film – from the beautifully ambient candlelit photography to the rafter-skimming symphonic score and the exceptionally fine period design, which moves from Waxflatter’s marvellous rickety workshop to an entire series of docks where the ice has been frozen over. Barry Levinson directs with a perfect balance of adventure and romance – the climactic swordfight is a real corker. Industrial Light and Magic conduct some of their best ever work during this period in the occasionally superfluous but never less than entirely captivating menagerie of animated gargoyles, chicken dinners returned to life, attacks by sword-wielding stained glass windows and ambulatory delights from a cake shop. Nicholas Rowe has just the right touch of imperiousness as Holmes. Sophie Ward has an incredible loveliness, even if the film’s romantic element is underused.