By C.E. Moore
GENRE: ACTION/ADVENTURE/DRAMA
RATING: PG-13
STUDIO: WARNER BROS.
THEATRICAL RELEASE: DECEMBER 25, 2009
DVD RELEASE: MAY 2010
Director Guy Ritchie has struck paydirt with Sherlock Holmes. Smartly filmed, smartly acted, smartly directed, this movie is as smart as it is fun. Let me be clear: Sherlock Holmes a great bit of escapism, but you won’t feel dumber for having “left reality” for the two hours the film takes up.
Here’s what I keep telling people. You know the movie The Prestige, right? Of course you do. If you’re reading a site like this, The Prestige is one of your faves. Anyhow, that’s beside the point. You know how in The Prestige you had to pay close attention to every little detail and how at the end all those little details came together to reveal a really intricate tapestry that you felt stupid for not realizing sooner? Well, Sherlock Holmes is just like that. Only, throughout the film, while you have to pay attention to the little details, Sherlock is solving little mysteries along the way. So, not only do you get a big payoff at the end, you also get a bunch of tiny payoffs throughout. So, even if you “didn’t see it coming” at the end, at least you had fun putting other puzzles together as the film progressed.
Robert Downey Jr. continues to scintillate on the screen, taking everything that made Iron Man’s Tony Stark eccentric and ratcheting it up a notch. Having never seen any of Downey Jr.’s pre-meltdown films, I have only caught his performances in Iron Man, Tropic Thunder, The Soloist, and now Sherlock Holmes. He continues to impress me and I look forward to seeing him in more films. The on-screen chemistry between Downey Jr.’s Holmes and Jude Law’s Watson is great. You get the sense that these men have been friends for a long period of time and that that friendship has been tested by fire. It is a theme that undergirds the film. Holmes, brilliant though he be, needs Watson in his life, even if he would never verbally admit. Though, his actions are more than telling.
I am generally a fan of Rachel McAdams, but I feel like her performance in this film as Holmes’ love interest Irene Adler falls a little flat. She’s a pretty face, yes. But, she doesn’t infuse her character with the qualities that are said to take Holmes off of his game. I guess there’s only so much you can do with the script as its written, but I felt like this was a bit of a miscast.
Mark Strong plays Lord Blackwood and he’s got the classic bad guy vibe going on. It’s not original, but it’s fun for the viewer to see him plot because we know that Holmes will figure things out in time to save the day. We just want to see how. I figured out things with Lord Blackwood pretty early on, but I’ve seen a gazillion movies. In many ways, unfortunately, Blackwood’s plan is more or less used as a vehicle for the planned sequel, which will feature Holmes’ archrival Dr. Moriarty. It is rumored that Brad Pitt will be stepping into those particularly dark shoes. If those rumors are true, I’ll be the first in line to grab my tickets.
That being said, Sherlock Holmes is good in a lot of ways and the bad points are forgivable.
