Movie 50: Sherlock Holmes

The worlds greatest detective Sherlock Holmes and his friend and companion Dr Watson are faced with an adversary who uses powerful black magic to return from the dead and TAKE OVER THE WORLD! (They’re……..Pinky and the Brain, yes Pinky and the Brain. Sorry, couldn’t resist). Meanwhile Holmes old flame Irene Adler is in town, working under the instruction of a mysterious Professor.

I’m not hugely familiar with the Holmes stories. I could be relatively familiar, I have audio versions of a number of the stories sitting on my computer due to my old job as inventory manager at a now defunct website. But I haven’t had time to listen to them yet. HOWEVER if this film is a semi-decent representation of the Holmes character, hopefully one of you could fill me in, I think I might just give them a listen.

To quote some made up journalist, or possibly some hack from the Daily Star or Heat, this isn’t your grandfathers Sherlock Holmes. He’s all edgy and action packed so he is. And you nearly see some tits like! PHWAR!

I got off track. This isn’t the Holmes that most, hell all, of us will be familiar with from the various TV shows, movies, spoofs and episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation. He’s still a genius, he still uses deductive reasoning, he’s still ahead of his time and he still lives in Baker street. BUT for once they include the fact that he used various mind altering substances and they’ve changed a few things (I assume). This Holmes is a bare knuckle boxer and good in a scrap. He can run around. And he’s extremely eccentric. A proper genius who’s mind is constantly working and needs to be distracted with drugs, drink and crazy ideas. Alas he doesn’t have a telly like modern ones do.

Downey Jr is one of the best actors going today. There, I said it. Fact is I’ve always thought he was great, it’s just a shame he got in his own way for a while there. Thankfully he got back out of it. His English accent is spot on, he doesn’t miss any beats and he plays the slightly wrecked genius well. Jude Law is someone I’m not always super happy with, sometimes I think he’s a bit shit really. Not so here. He’s a bloody good Watson. The two of them pair up well and you’d believe they have been friends for years, Watson having to suffer god knows what at Holmes’ hands.

As for the gay talk being spouted about? Where the fuck did that come from?! People who’ve never had a best friend? I didn’t think for a moment that they were gay for each other. Or that Holmes was jealous in that way. He doesn’t want his best mate taken away, he wants to keep playing without a girl interfering. You know who they really are? House and Wilson. The characters are even pretty close. Holmes is a complete genius, unmatched in his field, a bit of a shit, mad as an upside down rabbit in a box and he takes Watson for granted. Watson wants to get away, has had enough of all the crap, but can’t bare to leave and will show up every single time that Holmes needs him. House and Wilson.

And I fucking LOVE House so that’s fine by me. It’s a good fit. This might be a slightly, or largely, poochied version of the Holmes stories but not too badly. I was worried for a while that it might hit 300 levels of slo-mo use but thankfully it’s only a few times and to good effect. It was a clever touch to have Holmes calculate a fight in his head using the same techniques that he uses to solve crimes and they didn’t over use it. And the explosions looked great in that extended scenes. In fact it would have been like everything else if they hadn’t slowed it down.

I haven’t really included any spoilers here, except MAYBE mentioning the Professor but that happens slightly early on and is a B plot. A set up for a second movie. Unless you’ve lived under a rock your whole life, and if you have a spoiler from a Sherlock Holmes movie is the last thing you should be catching up on, you know that Holmes nemesis is Professor Moriarty. The version of Holmes that went over to the dark side, maybe he didn’t get enough hugs. I’m about to say something that could be controversial here.

If they do it right. If it’s scripted very well and they have two master swordsmen duelling with each other with pawns in the middle having to dance for them both. If Holmes gets a bit dark because of it. IF it’s done REALLY REALLY well…..we could be looking at another The Dark Knight. I know I’ll be there and I’ll be hoping. Get it right fellas

Next up: A Prophet