Just watched YOUNG SHERLOCK HOLMES with my wife and kids, via DVD. And the movie is still pretty good. I think it goes way over the top and becomes a TEMPLE OF DOOM clone, but overall, we liked it.. But I was amazed at how the 'school' setting and supporting characters were very "Harry Potter"ish. In fact, there is a scene when the entire school is sitting down for dinner and I thought I was watching a scene straight out of potter....Not sure how old POTTER books are, but I can't help but wonder if she saw this movie and was inspired for some aspects of her story... Rob Scorpio
^The similarity you're seeing comes about because both works depict the British boarding school system, which has its own well-established subculture and traditions. Readers unfamiliar with the British school system may pick up Harry Potter and assume the culture it depicts at Hogwarts is original to the book, but it's really just standard British education (or a satire thereof) with fantasy tropes superimposed on it. So Rowling wasn't inspired by Young Sherlock Holmes -- they were both inspired by the same thing from real life. Also, YSH was written by Chris Columbus, who directed the first two Potter films. So there could be some stylistic similarities between the movies which have nothing to do with Rowling. YSH was a pretty good movie, although of course it's an apocryphal tale; canonically, Watson never met Holmes until A Study in Scarlet. It was a bit Spielbergish, but an imaginative speculation about Holmes' formative experiences. And the cast was good. I've always wished someone would cast Nicholas Rowe and Alan Cox as the adult Holmes and Watson, do sort of an indirect sequel to YSH. It would still be doable; they're 42 and 38, respectively.
Oh, I love this movie. Why aren't there more like it? I enjoyed it so much as a kid. Now I want to watch it again!! There should have been another, although I bet it wouldn't have been as much fun.