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PlotSpoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.
A group of wealthy, well-established men in London become the target of a mysterious cloaked figure, who uses a blowpipe to shoot thorns into the targets' necks. The thorns, dipped into a solution of various botanical extracts, causes the victims to have violent and frightening hallucinations. These images ultimately result in the victim's death. Sherlock Holmes notices that his mentor and retired schoolmaster, Professor Waxflatter, is very curious about the deaths. When Waxflatter himself dies, Holmes suspects foul play, and he, his girlfriend Elizabeth (Waxflatter's granddaughter), and Watson (who had newly arrived in Holmes' school) begin to investigate. Clue by clue, Holmes traces the mysterious cloaked figure to a warehouse in the Wapping area of London known as Froggit and Froggit. The trio proceed to the warehouse to find abandoned Egyptian figurines and a large pyramid. Holmes suspects that the pyramid is larger than initially thought, and the floor boards break to reveal the structure's full body beneath them. They all enter and view, from a hiding spot, an Ancient Egyptian themed cult, known as the Rame-Tep (also known as Rametep and Ramatep), performing a ceremony in which a young girl is hypnotized, wrapped in linen and killed with the pouring of boiling wax atop her body. The trio gets spotted, though they escape back to the school. With the following of more clues, Sherlock Holmes eventually tracks down the killers to be Rathe, his present schoolmaster, and the school nurse, Mrs. Dribb. Holmes discovers that the two are siblings of anglo-egyptian decent who were angry at the uncovering of the graves of five Egyptian princesses and the related deaths of their parents at the hands of the aforementioned wealthy men. They vowed to kill off those responsible for disturbing the tombs and their parents' murder and performed the ceremony to "replace" the bodies of the princesses. So far, four girls were killed leaving only one left.
Spoilers end here.
TriviaRecent viewers of the film have noticed similarities between the characters, setting, events and tone of Young Sherlock Holmes, and those of the Harry Potter series. Such an observation may be explained by the fact that the first two Harry Potter films were directed by Chris Columbus. The film is also notable for including the first fully computer-generated character, a knight composed of elements from a stained glass window. The effect was created for Lucasfilm by John Lasseter (now executive vice-president at Pixar Animation Studios), who would go on to create Toy Story 10 years later. In Britain the film was re-titled Young Sherlock Holmes and the Pyramid of Fear, in a nod to the previous year's Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.
One criticism of the film is that Holmes does not solve the principal mystery by means of logical deduction. His methods are partly demonstrated during an investigation into the disappearance of a school trophy, but Holmes expends more energy on physical stunt work than on case analysis. The plot itself does not follow the traditional format of the original Conan Doyle stories. However, the story does explain Holmes' canonical behavior in that since young Holmes' actions costs him the life of Elizabeth, and Rathe taunted his inability to separate his actions from his emotions ("Never replace discipline with emotion!"), it serves to explain adult Holmes' stoicism and reliance on pure logic. References to the literary Holmes and how he acquired his distinct characteristics:
Cast
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