“Sherlock Holmes”
Written by Michael Robert Johnson, Anthony Peckham and Simon Kinberg, based on the character Sherlock Holmes, created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Directed by Guy Ritchie. Stars Robert Downey, Jr., Jude Law, Rachel McAdams and Mark Strong. Story centers on Investigator Holmes and his stalwart partner, Dr. Watson on their latest challenge. Revealing fighting skills as lethal and his legendary intellect, Holmes battles like never before to bring down a new nemesis, and unravel a deadly plot that could destroy the country.
Seen December 21, 2009, by Lars Bastholm and Adam Wohl
LARS:
Logline: Holmes lives again!
I had little to no expectations going into the screening of “Sherlock Holmes”. Sure, the trailers looked kinda fun, but then so do most action-adventure trailers and most of them don’t deliver in the end. Thankfully, Guy Ritchie has pulled off a classic adventure romp that fires on all cylinders and provides a rollicking good time. So once you’ve seen “Avatar”, this should be your next holiday port of call.
It seems like every generation needs its own interpretation of Arthur Conan Doyle’s immortal private investigator. I remember reading the books as a teenager, and they held up remarkably well. Especially “The Hound of the Baskervilles” scared me to bits at an impressionable age. In many ways, Holmes is the first man-of-science hero. Without him there’d be no forensic crime dramas; a genre that has taken over both movies and TV to a ridiculous degree – House, CSI, Fringe etc.
The Holmes of Conan Doyle’s books is a drug-using, neurotic violinist/scientist whose restless mind is constantly in danger of tipping him into full-blown insanity (sounds like Robert Downing Jr. a few years ago, doesn’t it? Well, maybe without the violin bit). Only through the help and assistance of his sidekick, the good Dr. Watson, does he manage to get through life without succumbing to his own distractions. For many years the Holmes we’ve seen, primarily on TV, was based more on the actor Basil Rathbone’s interpretation of the character than on Conan Doyle’s descriptions of the man. Ritchie and his small army of screenwriters have returned Holmes to the source and in the process made him a much more fun and modern detective than the English gentleman of yore.
Downing Jr. and Jude Law are perfectly cast as Holmes and Watson. Watson has often been the meek sidekick to Holmes, but in this version, he finally grows a pair. They banter and cajole and punch each other for good measure during the movie and it seems like the actors had a great time making this and enjoyed each other’s company immensely, making this as much a buddy movie as a detective story.
Guy Ritchie has always had an impeccable eye for great visuals. His two first, and best, movies, “Lock, Stock & Two Smoking Barrels” and “Snatch” had not only wonderfully quirky characters and storylines, but were also shot and edited to be just plain fun and very much aware that they were movies. For instance when Dennis Farina’s jewel thief in “Snatch” travels from New York to London in 4 quick cuts showing him finishing his drink in NY, a plane taking off, a car door slamming and him sitting in a room talking in London. It’s wonderfully cinematic stuff that a written description doesn’t do justice. However, Ritchie has also had a tendency to crawl up his own rear end and his two latest self-written movies, “Revolver” and “Rock’n’Rolla” were disappointing in both script and direction.
It seems like working from someone else’s script has freed Ritchie up to focus more on directing. This is without a doubt the best film he’s made since “Snatch” and it’s nice to have him back. “Sherlock Holmes” contains both classic genre showdown moments between the good and the bad guys as well as little signature flourishes from Ritchie. For instance the bare-knuckle fistfight Holmes wins by deducing how to win and then put the deductions into effect. It’s a great scene that helps set up both the Holmes character and the tone of the whole movie. Likewise, Ritchie and his special effects team do a great job in recreating London circa 1850. It’s grimy and crowded and you can easily imagine how foul it must have smelled.
In classic adventure film fashion there is great evil afoot. In this case it’s Lord Blackstone, played by an eerily sinister Mark Strong, who wants world domination (of course). Fooling London into believing that he has risen from the dead and is in league with the devil himself, he is the kind of cartoonish bad guy that we all love to hate. It falls to Holmes and Watson to stop him, all the while unraveling how Blackstone managed to pull off the tricks that so scared the public. There are a few subplots concerning the ladies in Holmes and Watson’s lives, but they seem to be there mostly to assure the audience that Holmes and Watson are not a gay couple. Especially Rachel McAdams character, while intriguing and claimed to be Holmes only true weakness, never has much to do.
It wouldn’t have been a Sherlock Holmes movie, if his nemesis Dr Moriarty didn’t get mentioned somehow. It doesn’t seem fair to give away how, but there’s a nice set-up for a sequel built into the film. I, for one, would be happy to see Robert Downing Jr. play up his madcap side as Sherlock Holmes again. Let’s hope that the plot and its resolution isn’t too convoluted for the great unwashed who seem to mostly want crap like “Transformers” as their cinematic diet. If I have one complaint it is that I don’t think Holmes ever utters his classic line, “Elementary, my dear Watson” in the movie. But take the family to this fun romp after you’ve eaten yourselves silly over the holidays. It’s one everyone should be able to enjoy.
ADAM:
I had high hopes heading into “Sherlock Holmes.” Despite the fact that I’d seen numerous commercials for the film (a big ad campaign always worries me that the studio is compensating for a lack of quality in what is coming), I was hopeful. I’m a fan of all of the parts — why shouldn’t I like the whole? Luckily, they pulled it off. The look of mid-nineteenth century London is vivid, the action well captured, the performances good and the direction solid. The pace is for the most part constant and I was very satisfied when the lights came up.
Though Guy Ritchie directed this film, Joel Silver produced it, and I suspect Silver had Ritchie on a short leash. And that’s a good thing. Joel Silver is synonymous with the term ‘buddy movie.’ If you were born in the last 40 years, Silver probably had a hand in one of your favorite buddy and/or action movies of all time. Lethal Weapon? 48 Hours? Die Hard? Matrix? Yes, yes, yes and yes. All Silver. And with “Holmes,” Silver continues to prove he knows how to bring the buddy film to the screen. The dynamic between Holmes(Robert Downey Jr.) and Dr. Watson(Jude Law) is the glue that holds this film together. But make no mistake – this is a big, fun movie with action, humor and intrigue. And it’s a very enjoyable way to spend two hours.
It’s without question Ritchie’s biggest assignment to date by far, and he’s up to the challenge, managing a good script and directing two incredibly talented stars who are never short on charm. They bicker and argue, a bit of “The Odd Couple,” with Holmes as the slob Oscar and Watson as the straight and narrow Felix. Downey Jr. and Law are perfectly cast and seem to be happily at ease in their roles. The direction is never self-important, Hans Zimmer’s score is wonderful — dare I say it — channeling Ennio Morricone. The editng is particularly good – complimenting one of the best devices in the film – depicting what deductions are going through Holmes’ mind before he makes a decision to commit to a physical attack. It really works. A similar style is used as flashback/recreation when Holmes reveals his assumptions of how a crime has taken place. This does comes off much like many procedural television crime shows on the air right now (the Mentalist, CSI, etc.), but one has to remember: even though it may seem as if “Holmes” is stealing from those TV shows, it was the literary Holmes who waxing philosophical on motive and modus operandi long before the television was invented.
There’s a bit of dark, sinister magic that will whet the appetite of those longing for a little supernatural with their action and gunplay. And this is a thinking man’s action film; science and deduction come into play a bit. It will be interesting to see whether American audiences accept or reject a movie of this size that does not play to the lowest common denominator, does not spoon-feed the moviegoer and instead takes a slightly more highbrow approach to the execution of the film. I commend them for it.
