I’ve decided to stop calling these posts “reviews.” They don’t deserve the term. I basically start up talking about whatever I feel like, and what results is an unbalanced monster which may laud the single virtue of a disaster or (more likely) stomp on the tiniest imperfection in a masterpiece. This endeavor is not a balanced, counter-weighted argument, it’s a floor for discussion.
With that out of the way, “Sherlock Holmes” was just okay. Nothing to get excited about.
There were strong elements, the strongest of these being Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law in the lead performances. Their contentious but loving brotherly relationship was the brightest spot in the film. Although it is far removed from the source material, it’s a good and necessary update to the dynamic in Conan Doyle’s originals, which suited him fine but wouldn’t have been right for this picture. Law is especially good as Watson, as he must essentially reinvent his character without losing sight of the shore. I was impressed by his ability to strike a balance between the grounded, sensible foil and the tough, virile co-conspirator. The script gave him a mess of contradictory objectives but he got them all. Well done, sir.
Downey Jr. is good as Holmes, but he only really comes alive when bantering with Watson. The rest of the film gives him little to do but be a smart dude. His relationship with Irene Adler (played by Rachel McAdams) is flat and uninteresting; Doyle was right to keep her at a distance when he invented her. Since he is practically born for the role and need only tweak his Tony Stark with a British accent, Rob handles himself well, but here’s hoping the next one gives him something to do with his character.
Rachel McAdams was terrible. I can’t figure out what happened.
The movie itself is somewhat uninvolving. There is a mystery to be decoded, but not an especially good one, and the villain has no personal stakes with either of our heroes; stopping him is just a matter of procedure. The first act is relatively strong, but as the film is loaded to the brim with unnecessary action scenes, the pace starts sagging. The aforementioned set pieces lack punch, they were clearly built in an editing room with green screens doing all the heavy lifting. And anyway, it’s “Sherlock Holmes,” damn it. Come expecting mystery, and suspense, and murder, but if you come to see a fist-fight you’re just wrong, and you shouldn’t be pandered to.
As for director Guy Ritchie, I generally found that the “Guy Ritchie” moments were the strongest pieces of the film, but there aren’t quite enough of them. Going in, my assumption was that Guy would be the story’s undoing, but his drunken lullabies style actually worked fine. There can be little doubt that the producers had him on a leash, though, fearful of something “different.”
In general, that’s my biggest problem with this movie: it isn’t different enough. Too many of its pieces are meant to appease, to placate, to avoid being offensive. Holmes himself is made into some kind of Tyler Durden-Jack Sparrow hybrid, because God forbid you let the character be who he naturally is. The action scenes are trite and meaningless, all I could think watching them was, “Why?” Any movie that is dressed up to be some other movie can never amount to anything, and “Sherlock Holmes” doesn’t. It has strong pieces, most of them caused by the talented cast and crew involved, who were assembled and then, paradoxically, cut off at the knees. I was reminded of Anthony Minghella describing the sick irony of Hollywood: the thing about you that made them hire you is also what they’re most of afraid of.
So yeah, “Holmes” is a studio executive’s idea of what we all like and can’t possibly not see. It’s a movie designed for the Happy Meal, which is funny cause “Avatar” already took it. The more I think about it, the more the positive things about the movie just make me angrier, because they seem so lonely adrift in a movie meant to signify nothing.
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