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Sherlock Holmes
Ever since I was a boy I have always liked the stories of Sherlock Holmes. Being a fan of the murder mystery genre I have always enjoyed the escapades of Mr. Holmes and his assistant Dr. Watson as they set about trying to find blackmailers, killers, and kidnappers using only the smallest of clues. Pre CSI, Mentalist, Columbo, Monk, et al, Sherlock Holmes has always given our modern day sleuths a run for their money – I suspect that many of the above characters were based in part on Mr. Holmes and co.
The first Sherlock Holmes mysteries were published way back in the mid 1800′s and yet Holmes & Watson remain the world’s most famous detective duo; in fact, the character of Holmes has been in more movies than any other fictitious/literary character. And, it would seem, he is still giving the other “would-be” detectives a run for their money.
When I heard that 2009 would see the big screen return of Sherlock Holmes I was pretty excited… that is until I heard that Guy Ritchie would be directing. Not a fan of Mr. Ritchie’s previous movies I knew that Holmes would end up being violent and dark – and Sherlock Holmes is violent and very dark.
Robert Downey Jr. stars as the Victorian detective and does a fine job. His English accent is superb and he plays Holmes with everything that he has as an actor. Jude Law is good as his assistant, Watson, and he also does a good job. In fact, there was nothing wrong with the acting at all in this movie, everyone played their parts with attention to detail. The problem I had was with the screenplay. The writers had obviously tried to re-invent Holmes with a more modern twist to appeal to modern audiences and it just didn’t work for me. Like in most depictions of Holmes and co the screenplay was tinged with humor, had dark elements, and was very tongue in cheek. But I just didn’t buy it!
The story was so eclectic that I had trouble keeping up with what was going on and fitting this movie into any one genre would be difficult at best – was it comedy, drama, action, thriller, crime, mystery. Maybe it was all of the above, but it gelled about a good as oil and water.
My biggest problem with the movie (and a problem I have with many PG-13 movies) was the amount of violence on offer. To be fair much of the violence it was bloodless, but don’t watch this movie expecting the Holmes of yesteryear. The movie’s director Guy Ritchie is the same man that bought us Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch so you can expect the violence to be realistic in nature; one scene has Holmes locked in a street brawl and we see every blow in slow motion with a monologue description by Holmes of just what the blow is doing to his rival.
As I said above the movie is very dark and the story has satanic overtones. Pentagrams, spells, potions, and sacrifice are all on offer as the movies main protagonist is a man who uses the black arts to win for himself a loyal following. But again the violence trumps all of this; among other things people are shot, beaten, set on fire, hanged, kicked, punched, stabbed, and strangled.
My biggest disappointment with this Sherlock Holmes is that the mystery was not the focus of this movie. To me Holmes has always been about the mystery. Instead we are bombarded by fast “clever” talk, out of place action set pieces, and tongue in cheek humor that have all but replaced the mystery. This is like taking the action out of Die Hard series, the horror out of Friday the 13th series, and the sci-fi out of the Star Trek series. It doesn’t work. And that is how I feel after watching this latest edition of Sherlock Holmes, it didn’t work for me.
I wanted to like this movie, but the bottom line is I felt ripped off by this messy, disjointed movie. Apparently a sequel is in the works, hopefully it will be better than this first attempt.
Chris
April, 2010.
I enjoyed this movie. I also appreciate and understand your point about the de-mystifying the content and therefore creating a vehicle that had the trappings of the stories/characters/etc without staying true to the foundation it was constructed on. I think this is a common trend/theme for the majority of adaptations brought out as a "Summer Blockbuster"/large budget film. They want to hit their broad marks/demographic and bring in the coin. And on that note they do succeed. What is lost is some of the spirit that made the story/creation so successful in the first place. It's the same effect we see in comic book adaptations etc.