Review: Sherlock Holmes (2009)

[Tim Skirvin]

  The trailer for _Sherlock Holmes_ was one of the worst short pieces
of video that I had ever seen.  Its fundamental flaw was playing up the
Victorian/Modern juxtaposition - fistfights!  firearms!  explosions!  tasers!
- without allowing enough context to actually make that interesting.
Instead, the viewer got the (strong) impression that they were just
throwing a bunch of stuff at the screen, and looking to see what stuck with
the audience.  The only hope I had for the movie was that most of those
scenes would be left out by the director because...  well, I'm not sure.
It's not like I'm the target audience...

  Anyway, none of it was left out.  But in context, it worked out a
whole lot better than the trailers had led me to believe.  It still wasn't
*good*, but it was worth watching, and certainly it was fun.  And that's a
start.

  That said, what I really want to talk about is the Sherlock Holmes
elements.

  Many of the objections that I had to the trailer were,
fundamentally, problems with the idea of mixing certain concepts into the
character of Holmes.  Since when is physical violence a strong element of
the Master Detective's repertoire?  Well, the answer is "since Guy Ritchie
took over".  It worked in the context of his direction style, it worked in
the context of the actors chosen (who did a fine job), and it worked in the
context of a need to still overshadow Watson in a newly action-y pairing.
The violence became part of the point, and that turned out to be okay, if
not great.

  On the other hand, where did this fit into the mythos?  Without
getting into spoilers, this seemed to occur both early in Holmes' career
(based on characters met), and after the stories (based on Watson's moving
out and on with his life).  While they were certainly going for a new mythos
- something that they could make a franchise out of - it was still a bit
confusing for this casual acquaintance of the original stories.  I would
have preferred one or the other.

  And the story...  was kindof Holmes-y.  There were the right number
of "supernatural" elements.  The deductive work was pretty reasonable.  The
mysteries weren't, for the most part, *cheats*, which is a good sign.  And
while the story may have been a little bit more momentous than perhaps
necessary, it was still something that could mostly have fit in.  Mostly.

  Anyway.  I feel like I'm rambling, because that's how I felt coming
out of the movie.  I didn't feel ripped-off; that's good enough sometimes.

  ** 1/2

                           - Tim Skirvin (tskirvin at killfile.org)
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