One of my friends really loves the Sherlock Holmes movies. So I watched the first one, and now the second one, simply to see if I could derive the same level of enjoyment that my friend seems to get out of it. Sadly, I seem to be missing something.
I have always loved Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's stories and maybe that's the trouble. I expect entirely too much from my Sherlock and the scripts for these movies simply can't deliver. The second one picks up right where the first one left off, with Watson about to be married and a short cameo from Rachel McAdams playing Irene Adler, Holmes' obligatory love interest. This time of course, the stakes are even higher because the villain of the piece is none other than Professor James Moriarty, Holmes' arch nemesis and the greatest criminal mastermind of the age. There are bombs going off all across Europe and Holmes suspects Moriarty (played with devlish enthusiasm by Mad Men's Jared Harris who seems well-suited to the part of evil genius). Once Watson and his wife Mary become targets, adventure and intrigue follow, with endless action set-pieces over the backdrop of sooty and dark Europe.
The actors are all great (though I still maintain I'd rather have an English actor playing Holmes, even if Downey Jr. has a creditable RP accent) and they do the best they've got with the material. Noomi Rapace (star of the Swedish version of the Girl With the Dragon Tattoo movies) plays a gypsy and is the one lady amidst the macho posturing, and Stephen Fry pulls off a brilliant appearance as Mycroft Holmes. Like I tweeted when I saw the movie, the film would have been greatly improved if there were more scenes of Fry swanning about in his birthday suit.
Ultimately my problem with these movies has always been the emphasis on gritty action. Everything comes down to a boxing match, everyone gets down and dirty, and the actual deductive reasoning (which is what Holmes is supposed to be famous for) always seems like a boring afterthought. While Jude Law plays Watson with restraint, Downey Jr. has to be alternately campy, macho, and a buffoon, not qualities you necessarily want in your Sherlock. This is what you get when your director is Guy Ritchie, who seems keen to run this franchise on the same principles as Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels. These movies are fine but not excellent, and all of the plot points are a mix of things you've seen countless times before in other films. Even Moriarty's grand plot is one of those typically James Bond-ish schemes that won't surprise anyone.
If you're looking for a good adaptation of the classic Sherlock Holmes story, these movies aren't meant for you. Instead, I would suggest Sherlock, the BBC TV series co-created by Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss, which stars the ineffably marvelous Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman as Holmes and Watson. Strangely enough, while this series is a modern re-imagining of the classic tale and has its fair share of action sequences and showdowns, it feels far truer to the story than the movies, which are set in Victorian times and claim to be very authentic in their rendering of the world.
Towards the end of the film when Holmes and Moriarty are engaged in hand-to-hand combat, Moriarty makes the following observation about Holmes' boxing style: "Competent but predictable." My sentiments exactly.
I have always loved Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's stories and maybe that's the trouble. I expect entirely too much from my Sherlock and the scripts for these movies simply can't deliver. The second one picks up right where the first one left off, with Watson about to be married and a short cameo from Rachel McAdams playing Irene Adler, Holmes' obligatory love interest. This time of course, the stakes are even higher because the villain of the piece is none other than Professor James Moriarty, Holmes' arch nemesis and the greatest criminal mastermind of the age. There are bombs going off all across Europe and Holmes suspects Moriarty (played with devlish enthusiasm by Mad Men's Jared Harris who seems well-suited to the part of evil genius). Once Watson and his wife Mary become targets, adventure and intrigue follow, with endless action set-pieces over the backdrop of sooty and dark Europe.
The actors are all great (though I still maintain I'd rather have an English actor playing Holmes, even if Downey Jr. has a creditable RP accent) and they do the best they've got with the material. Noomi Rapace (star of the Swedish version of the Girl With the Dragon Tattoo movies) plays a gypsy and is the one lady amidst the macho posturing, and Stephen Fry pulls off a brilliant appearance as Mycroft Holmes. Like I tweeted when I saw the movie, the film would have been greatly improved if there were more scenes of Fry swanning about in his birthday suit.
Ultimately my problem with these movies has always been the emphasis on gritty action. Everything comes down to a boxing match, everyone gets down and dirty, and the actual deductive reasoning (which is what Holmes is supposed to be famous for) always seems like a boring afterthought. While Jude Law plays Watson with restraint, Downey Jr. has to be alternately campy, macho, and a buffoon, not qualities you necessarily want in your Sherlock. This is what you get when your director is Guy Ritchie, who seems keen to run this franchise on the same principles as Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels. These movies are fine but not excellent, and all of the plot points are a mix of things you've seen countless times before in other films. Even Moriarty's grand plot is one of those typically James Bond-ish schemes that won't surprise anyone.
If you're looking for a good adaptation of the classic Sherlock Holmes story, these movies aren't meant for you. Instead, I would suggest Sherlock, the BBC TV series co-created by Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss, which stars the ineffably marvelous Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman as Holmes and Watson. Strangely enough, while this series is a modern re-imagining of the classic tale and has its fair share of action sequences and showdowns, it feels far truer to the story than the movies, which are set in Victorian times and claim to be very authentic in their rendering of the world.
Towards the end of the film when Holmes and Moriarty are engaged in hand-to-hand combat, Moriarty makes the following observation about Holmes' boxing style: "Competent but predictable." My sentiments exactly.
nice picture!
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