Sherlock Holmes

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Holmes

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source: Sherlock Holmes

for being Madonna's 59th boyfriend. Judging by this cinematic piece of filth, he certainly won't be remembered for anything else. Hey, what a neat idea. Let's take these iconic characters who've been around for a century and totally screw with them. Let's make Holmes a dysfunctional slob, and Watson a gambling jerk, and give them some kind of frustrated bro-mance, with no chemistry. Yeah, we'll use Jude Law and Robert Downey Jr., but it will still stink. Okay, the CGI looked good, and they did some great set direction, but deep down, you don't care. These aren't the Holmes and Watson Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wrote about. They are at best clichés...

I am still reeling from the sheer terror of enduring this movie. It was a masterpiece of horror. It was a collection of platitudes and nonsense on a level that you rarely see in movies with this kind of budget. I can not find a single redeeming quality. Nothing at all. Bad acting is excusable here, and I won't cover the obvious stiffness and discomfort of Jude Law. I'd be too if I was him. That wasn't the bad part though. Holmes. Drug addict. Manic depressive perhaps. Prone to lock him self up in his room for weeks on end. Not good for the old physique. But oh, he's a veritable Bruce Lee meets the Karate Kid. Are you joking? Are you serious? I can suspend my disbelief with the best of them, but that is just too much of a stretch. It is actually too bloody stupid to even contemplate. For half the movie you think you are watching some kind of a "Harry Potter has Grown Up" production. It is uncanny how much like Harry Potter they tried to make this thing. If I want wizards, I'll go see Harry Potter, the real one, thank you very much. No, Harry Potter is not an improvement on the old Dickensian movie look. Really. It's not. Oh, and who let bloody Dan Brown into the script writers room. Honestly. The only thing missing was a bad cut to some medieval knight fighting some secret society in Jerusalem. I hereby nominate Sherlock Holmes for the Turkey of the year, and I doubt any other will come close to this junk.

I love Robert Downey Jr., and he's funny and engaging as always in the role he takes on in this film. Unfortunately, his character, though named after the "Sherlock Homes" invented by Arthur Conan Doyle, has almost nothing in common with his literary ancestor. This film's "Holmes" is a hyper-kinetic pugilist who excels at swinging numchuks, swan-diving into the Thames from second-story windows, and leaping about city buildings in a manner reminiscent of the Assassin's Creed video game franchise. For that matter, the hyper-real Victorian London of the film's exterior shots has a very similar computer-generated feel to it, one amplified when it vividly depicts the Tower of London on the wrong side of the Thames, among other gaffes. There is none of the cerebral intensity, none of the subdued emotion, essential to Holmes as a character. A pipe appears precisely three times, and a cigar if proffered but unsmoked. Jude Law's Watson shows little affection for or understanding of this nouveau Holmes, and their little bits of stage business evoke nothing of the vital feeling between them. That said, if a steam-punk action-adventure film that's built around three or four elaborate chase sequences appeals, this film may be a fun way to spent an afternoon -- it's certainly a decent "popcorn" flick. But anyone who knows anything about, or cares very much for, Conan Doyle's immortal character would be better off staying home and popping a few Jeremy Bretty DVD's into their player.

I've finally figured out Guy Ritchie's fatal weakness as a filmmaker. He doesn't actually care about character, theme, or even storytelling. He just wants to be cool. He only wants characters that quirky, badasses, or sex godesses. Because they're cool. He employs flashy cutting, hyper-stylized cinematography, and fractured time lines. Because, they're cool! This worked for the bonkers Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels, and Snatch. Those movies were cool and it felt natural, easy. Things took a turn for the ugly with Swept Away, this decade's Isthar. Revolver was dreadful, and RocknRolla dances in your faces practically screaming "look how cool I am" and is then forgotten before you've even unlocked the car to leave the theater. Which brings us to Ritchie's desperate-to-please, big-Hollywood style stab at Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's timeless icon. The production values are excellent. Period-appropriate London is completely convincing. Downey's Holmes captures the mad intensity of Doyle's character, withdrawn, depressed, and self destructive when he's has nothing to occupy is never ceasing ming, burning life and frantic energy when the case does arrive. He does however, straight up mumble for half the picture, rendering what might of been neat instances of observation/deduction/knowledge, but I couldn't tell. Couldn't understand him. Ah, the case. When it comes to adaptations, remakes, re-imaginings, etc, I'm a pretty forgiving fellow, as long as the soul is intact. Change the race, change the gender, change the setting, but don't lose the essence. The mystery, the case, is the soul of a Sherlock Holmes tale and I'm afraid this is where Ritchie's film falls flat. Sure, there's something dastardly afoot, but solving the puzzle is beyond the audience to predict. We're not made a part of the unraveling. Stuff goes on that we don't understand, and it's all explained in the end in smash cut flash backs, filling us in with details that were never foreshadowed, many of them feeling like afterthoughts to dig the screenplay out of the hole it dug for itself. Doyle's stories invite us to narrow our brows and read carefully. One feels include in the unraveling. We're right there with Watson (who in this movie, is quite spry for a man with a permanent war injury) Here, Ritchie holds out on us, keeping the mechanics of the mystery entirely to himself. The larger mystery afoot exists for no other purpose than to make a sequel. Why such failure in maintaining the soul of Holmes? Because Ritchie doesn't care about the mystery. He drowns the film in cool, in showy camera angles, manically (and confusingly cut) action and the whole affair is drummed up with buddy-movie comedic angle that falls flat. It's just not funny. The shifts in tone from funny, to mysterious, to thrilling, to dramatic, are jarring, barely held together at the seams. It's ultimately a crushing bore, lacking any sort of narrative momentum. Guy Ritchie has undeniable talent as stylist. He'll can make a worthwhile movie. No one who works that hard with that much raw talent will just fade away. He needs to another round at bat to prove that too us again.

I grew up reading Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's novels and I could still read them. This is because his novels can wake up imagination of the child and yet they have style and class to involve any adult into the story. I can say that this is the case with most of the Sherlock Holmes movies I had seen before I saw this one as they engage you by using the intelligent plot, first of all. 2009 Sherlock Holmes is a ridiculous attempt to turn a legendary detective into a Mission Impossible character and Dr. Watson into James Bond, Sean Connery style. Fast actions with special effects and very poor plot development are typical failures of this sterile Hollywood style project which has nothing to do with Sherlock. As I already mentioned partly, character of Dr Watson overpowers must dominating figure of Sherlock Holmes, which is sooo amateurish. Sherlock Holmes casting is a total failure, this guy matches Sherlock Holmes character as much as Sylvester Stallone. All in all, this is the bad time for Sherlock Holmes lovers.