SHERLOCK HOLMES

d. Guy Ritchie
USA, 2009

The trailer convinced us that SHERLOCK HOLMES was going to turn Holmes into an action hero in a CGI London, but then internet correspondants half-convinced us that it might not be quite as bad as that. We tempered our expectations in both directions, and went in hoping we'd get a CGI London action hero with just enough Doyle in it to make it tolerable, and perhaps just enough twists to make it amusing.

Well, it wasn't that, nor did it fulfill the worst of our fears. It is a misfortune that it could not rise above its action framework to meet the goals of its revisionist conceits.

[ Note: It isn't CGI that ruins movies, it is the lack of imaginative use of CGI that ruins movies. ]

What we liked: Jude Law as Watson. Watching Robert Downey, but...

What we didn't like: ...although Robert Downey did the best he could with the material, he'd have made a better Holmes in a better Holmes story. Irene Adler was hot, but Irene Adler was not romantically interesting to Holmes, only a fascinating study.

[ Note: A truly daring revisionist Holmes would revise the popular image of the character back to the Holmes of the actual stories. Make him cold, snippy, and arrogant, even unlikeable, but fascinating in his obsessions. Won't happen. ]

2 January 2010