Wednesday Review: Sherlock Holmes

Susan:
Ostensibly, I should have loved Sherlock Holmes.  Shirtless Robert Downey, Jr.?  Check.  Hyper-masculine, aesthetically-pleasing violence and action? Check.  Homoerotic tension?  Um, CHECK.  Indeed, this movie is chock full of that Hollywood brand of AWESOME I love so well.  Yet something about it just didn’t sit right with me.

The aforementioned Robert Downey, Jr. stars as a haggard, troubled, possibly queer version of the classic literary character Sherlock Holmes.  Jude Law plays Dr. John Watson (of “It’s elementary, my dear Watson” fame), Holmes’ partner in crime-solving and possible object of his affection.  Rachel McAdams rounds out the lead threesome as Irene Adler, the only woman to ever outsmart Holmes and therefore the only woman to ever capture his heart.  The movie opens with Holmes and Watson fighting their way to Lord Blackstone (played by Mark Strong, who looks more like Andy Garcia than Andy Garcia does) and arresting him for performing black magic.  Blackstone is hanged, but comes back from the dead (OR DOES HE??) to lead the local chapter of the Evil Secret Fraternal Organization That Is Kind of Like The Masons.  There is far too much double-, triple-, and quadruple-crossing that goes on in the rest of the film to try to summarize the plot here.  Suffice it to say that Holmes gets into a number of sticky situations, Watson and Adler come to his rescue, he comes to theirs, Blackstone tries to kill members of Parliament using some sort of wacky 19th century device, Holmes hangs him off an unfinished London Bridge, and the movie ends with Holmes reopening the case to chase down another villain dude, setting Guy Ritchie up to direct Sherlock Holmes II: Maybe Holmes and Watson Will Do It In This One.

The movie is glossy, the action is well-shot and fun to watch, and the actors all do a great job with their respective characters.  But the problem with Sherlock Holmes is that it tries to be too many movies all at once and becomes muddled in the process.  There were moments that felt like a crime-caper movie (Snatch, for example), and others that reeked of From Hell or The Da Vinci Code or some other movie about the boundless power of secret fraternal organizations.  Holmes breaks into houses and destroys property and the what not, but we find out at the end of the film that he wants to arrest Blackstone rather than kill him because of some kind of reverence for the law or something.  Sometimes he seems like he’s in love with Watson, sometimes he seems like he’s in love with Adler, but mostly the plot just appears to exist to facilitate more slo-mo fight scenes and awesome exterior shots of a CGI 19th century London.  Not that I necessarily have a problem with that, but I guess I just expected or hoped for more.

Geoff:
I must say, I’m a little surprised, Susan, not because I disagree with you but because (as you already mentioned) all the ostensible requisites I’ve taken to be your bread and butter were there. I guess the glistening chest of Mr. Downey Jr. only carries so much weight.

From your reaction, I don’t know if we’re on exactly the same plane, but I think we’re close. If it’s possible to enjoy oneself without ever really being completely blown away, then this is that.  The movie’s worth a viewing.  The acting’s fun (Downey Jr. in particular).  But never once do I remember snapping smartly to attention at something I didn’t expect or something I felt I needed to pay particular attention/interest/respect to.  The double-, triple-, and quadruple-crosses come at such a rate that you’re just waiting for the next one after a while, and objects are constantly introduced in such a way that it’s impossible you won’t remember their significance for later (Holmes might as well have said things like, “Look, Watson, a bridge! Please take note of that bridge!”).

Guy Ritchie’s all about the flash and the fun, which is great, but he gets into trouble when characters have to talk beyond quips and/or interact without their fists. During the subplots (such as Watson’s marriage), you get the sense that Ritchie might have been just as uninterested in filming them as we then are while watching them.

Not that I hated the thing. It’s an okay film to spend an afternoon with. It’s just that it feels more like another ride at the fair instead of being the new roller coaster you want to get in line for over and over again.

Susan:
Frankly, I was pretty all-the-way-in (likely due to the copious amounts of RDJ’s glistening chest, as you so smartly put it, Geoff) until the scene where they went from the sewer to the top of London Bridge via what seemed to be a single staircase.  I’m not saying London Bridge is not somehow connected to the sewer system, because I don’t actually know about how the London sewer system works, but I’m just saying that the way the scene was actually shot suggested a script page that looked something like this:

IRENE and SHERLOCK race through the sewers of London, him following shortly behind her, with the mean French giant in hot pursuit. They climb a flight of stairs.  Suddenly, IRENE finds herself on the top of London Bridge, and the camera pans out to reveal some badass CGI.

You know that I’m all about suspension of disbelief and just enjoying things, so when your plot holes are so big that they bother ME, you’re pretty deep in the weeds as a filmmaker.

Also, did anyone else feel like Watson’s wife was kind of an uggo?  I’m not saying she wasn’t super pretty for a real person, but in the context of a Hollywood movie?  Playing against Jude Law?  Bring your A-Game, casting agents.  That lady looked kind of like a greyhound.  And her character is too fleshless to have her be anything but breathtakingly stunning.  Pretty-like-a-British-girl-in-a-PBS-movie-about-love-across-class-divisions is just not enough for this flashy flick.

But catty judgmental-ness aside, I think we are basically on the same page here, Geoff.  (BORING!)  I’m probably not going to buy it when it comes out on DVD, but I will probably see the sequel(s).  What can I say, I’m a sucker for slo-mo face-punches.

Geoff:
You’re description of Watson’s bride-to-be is spot-on. Maybe the guy just really digs the Masterpiece Theatre look.

I won’t say there was any one point that just completely took me out of the movie.  It’s just that, overall, the whole thing was really nothing more than an adequate diversion. You could put it on in the background at a party without really missing a whole lot. Give me a Holmes and a Watson with a few new layers (and no, the ability to engage in fisticuffs does not qualify as a layer), and give me a little variety.  I mean, it’s fun and impressive watching Holmes map out his actions in slow-motion before he commits to them, but could Guy Ritchie maybe have come up with a few other ways to get us operating on the Baker Street detective’s brain wave?

I think that’s all I would have asked for to bump the movie up to the level of general praise, either a little more fun or a little more complexity (on the level of the characters, not just further twists of the plot) or, better still, a little more of both. Unless Watson and Holmes go ahead and just do it already at the beginning of the sequel, making their search for the elusive Moriarty all the more awkward and fraught (but also undeniably more interesting), I’m guessing the second film will feel similarly lacking.