Honestly speaking, when I saw the preview of the Sherlock Holmes I had no intention of watching it. I have read every Sherlock Holmes story there is (including the clunky ones like the The Valley of Fear) and can quote from them extensively. I resisted for a while and then succumbed as it was either that or It's Complicated. Guy Ritchie is the director of this movie, and he has a cult following for some off-beat movies. I expected something along those lines. Friends, I was in for a surprise. What the writers have done is to take some of the less-detailed aspects of Holmes's life - that he is a fairly accomplished fighter with some advanced knowledge of martial arts, an occasional dabbler in narcotics when ennui sets in, and his fascination for Irene Adler - to weave an engrossing movie out of it. This is not the clean-shaven, sharp featured, quirky detective that Jeremy Brett made popular. Instead Robert Downey, Jr. takes the Sherlock we know and sinks his teeth into some of the neurosis that the man surely possessed. Another entertaining deviation from the Conan Doyle era Holmes is that Dr. James Watson (Jude Law) is shown to be a gallant, brave, and surprisingly perceptive man. Watson is not shown as the fall guy for Holmes to show-off his deductive skills. Instead all through the movie, Watson is shown to be his equal in figuring out clues. Naturally, like the truly good sidekick he is, Watson lets Sherlock resolve the big mystery at the heart of the story, but features in the adventure all the way to the end.
This is not to say the movie does not have its defects. Downey, Jr.'s British accent comes and goes, the movie is shot in murky colors making a lot of the action hard to follow, and the characters have the terribly annoying habit of speaking their important (and plot revealing) lines when the camera is not on them. I have noticed this same problem with the Harry Potter movies, too, where the character may be saying something important to the plot but the camera lingers on some other actor or a side-incident and it is hard to keep track of both. Ugh!
Usually it takes me about 5-10 minutes for my ears to adjust to the British accents but I could not do so till the end. I missed out on many utterances and was only able to intuitively glean what the character was saying based on what happened next or how the characters responded.
So, do I recommend the movie or not? I will slip into Hyderabadi movie review mode and say that this is a time pass movie and not a story movie, so don't go in with the wrong expectations. Do not try to solve the case many of the "clues" are not revealed to us but if you sit back and enjoy the ride, you will be carried along to a pleasant enough experience. Or you can just wait for the sequel.
P.S. Mary Morstan first came to Sherlock's attention as his client in The Sign of Four but the movie shows them to be strangers until Watson introduces Mary as his fiancee. Surely, the writers could have found some other character to parade as Watson's fiancee? Or am I being too much of a stickler here?
I think I shall go and re-read my favorite Holmes story - Silver Blaze now.
3 comments:
We sure don't see eye to eye on this one! I thought the movie was tacky and overdrawn. But above all, I thought they slaughtered Irene Adler, mindlessly destroyed the character.
R, I did completely gloss over the irrelevance of Irene Adler to the plot except as a red herring (and the chance to have the obligate "love interest". It was intentional on my part.
I went into the movie with very low expectations and was prepared to loathe it for distorting the Sherlock Holmes canon. When there were enough scenes that pay homage to the character I warmed up to it.
My review does point out other things that jarred, so it wasn't a ringing endorsement either.
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twas hilarious, just my kind of humor :D
the filming was great i luv how they showed holmes plan slowly so you know what he's doing and then you see it again at normal speed, which is really fast or how the story would go back and explain something you may not have seen before..
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