Not so elementary anymore, my dear Watson… – ‘Sherlock Holmes' Review

Posted on January 1, 2010 - 7:56pm by michael There are few things quite so clichéd and irritating to me as to say something like “Sherlock Holmes for a new generation,” but that’s pretty much what’s going on here. There has been so much bickering and moaning about inconsistencies with the time period of Victorian London and discrepancies in the characters that it’s almost like a whole demographic set out with the goal of hating the thing. Peter Travers from Rolling Stone whined like squabbling baby because Holmes tells Lord Blackwood “I love what you’ve done with the place.” Yeah, that’s a real offensive line. I can see how it could make someone upset. Indeed, I can see how it would make someone want to “cry their eyes out over this update from hell.” Seriously? Update from hell? A single line of dialogue? Ok, it’s not exactly so fitting with the time period, but my God man, lighten up! Personally, I had a bigger problem with the special effects sequences, if only because they didn’t really know when to ease up a little on the throttle. Victorian London is so richly re-created that you could almost smell the...ah...I don’t know, whatever their was to smell there. Freshly baked bread from inviting bakeries mixing with the pervasive coal smoke in the air and maybe the putrid aroma of emptied chamber pots running down the gutters. But then there are also countless overblown effects sequences, like a cheesy battle on top of the unfinished London Bridge, to remind us of just how modern this re-imagining of Britain’s most famous detective really is. The plot doesn’t fit at all with the character that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle originally created, but for every creative liberty taken, the discrepancy is cleverly side-stepped and the movie never misses a beat. The story is about a supervillain named Blackwood who is caught committing a heinous crime at the beginning of the movie and sentenced to death. He is hung but soon comes back from the dead with no less of a plan than to use peoples’ fear of his immortality to “rule the future.” Right. Such a crime wouldn’t spark the least bit of interest in Holmes, who shunned large crimes with their obvious motives for smaller but much more interesting and challenging crimes that might provide for a more efficient cognitive workout. Were he aware of this characteristic of Holmes', Mr. Travers might well have been even more offended when Blackwood tells him, "You and I are bound together on a journey that will twist the very fabric of nature." What does that even mean? Doyle’s Holmes was, however, a very conflicted and inconsistent character. In one story he expresses genuine surprise when Watson informs him that the earth is round, and then he immediately does his best to forget it, explaining that such information is useless to him. In other stories, it’s revealed that he can speak English, German, French, and Latin, and he understands Roman epigrams in the original. It’s hard to imagine that he might utilize such information regularly enough for it to necessitate taking up so much space in his “brain attic,” but given that such irregularities exist in the original stories, I am willing to forgive a few similar stretches in Guy Ritchie’s new movie. [caption id="attachment_67638" align="alignright" width="346" caption="Actual quote: "Beneath this pillow lies the key to my release." Get it? Get it?"][/caption] And I have to say that the performances are outstanding across the board. Robert Downey Jr. plays a more hardened and physical Holmes than most that we’ve seen in the past, bringing out the street-fighting bit of his personality that is not, by the way, a stretch. Doyle’s Holmes was a prize-winning fighter, and Ritchie uses his thorough skill in constructing hard-hitting fight scenes to not only show us how good of a fighter Holmes is, but also to show us how quickly and thoroughly his mind works. Jude Law also raises the bar of Dr. Watson’s coolness factor, and he and Downey work amazingly well on screen. I was even impressed by Rachel McAdams, who I thought was brilliant in The Notebook but made an unfortunate choice to star in Wes Craven’s disappointing Red Eye, but mostly I’m still reeling from my horrific experience in watching The Time Traveler’s Wife. My eyes still hurt from that thing. But in Sherlock Holmes she gives a spirited performance as Irene Adler, the only member of the fairer sex who has, in plenty of ways, outdone Sherlock himself. Most importantly, there’s a crucial scene where the movie comes dangerously close to making a drastic mistake concerning their relationship with each other, and I assure you, the correct choice was made. Like any movie, Sherlock Holmes has plenty for people to complain about if they want to, but it’s also highly entertaining and, for all of its excesses, it’s much more faithful to the original character than I expected. Guy Ritchie seems to have been trying to walk a fine line between remaining faithful to the original stories which have inspired countless dry, stuffy tv shows and movies, and making an exciting thriller that will appeal to a younger generation with thoroughly different expectations from a big-budget mystery thriller. This is definitely not an easy mark to hit, but despite a few stretches I think they’ve done it. Bravo! The Bean Meter