Audience: NY Times Readers
A young reporter writes a story about the life of a man whose fame and fortune resulted in abandonment and alienation. This reporter's journey sends him to various people connected with the story, each of whom shares their portion of the tale. Through the countless flashbacks, the people closest to this man reveal the side of him not seen by the public.
No, this is not "Citizen Kane." Snow globes and childhood sleds are replaced by bright blue hair and silver stilettos in Todd Haynes' "Velvet Goldmine."
Director Todd Haynes, known for his controversial films "Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story," "Poison," and "Safe," seems to pride himself in the shock factor of most of his movies, often featuring explicit sexuality and homosexual relationships.
"Velvet Goldmine" is no exception. However, beyond the nudes, homosexuals, and orgies lies an actual story line. The movie stars Jonathan Rhys Meyers as bisexual glam-rock superstar Brian Slade, an artist only interested in hitting it big and having a blast along the way. In the process, mostly due to his quirky and queer personality, Slade creates a fad that becomes a phenomenon that becomes a revolution.
Soon, all of the youth of Britain is clad in feather boas, silver eye shadow, and fur jackets. Heterosexuality has given way to bisexuality and homosexuality as British teens lose grasp of the difference between girls and boys.
But as easily as fame came to Brian Slade, it is lost. When Slade fakes his own death at a concert, revealed later by the media to be a hoax, his fan base deteriorates, glam rock slowly dies, and Brian Slade disappears not only from the public eye, but from everyone who had been so close to him during his glory days like his wife, played by Toni Collette, and his homosexual partner, played by Ewan McGregor.
Haynes makes more references to real life glam rock than he shows a naked ass. In fact, the title "Velvet Goldmine" refers to a song written by David Bowie of the same title. Many of the small parts in the movie are played by real-life rock stars, and most of the characters in the movie are based upon the life of a real star.
Therefore, this film immediately draws a fan base from fans or participants of the glam-rock era so many years ago looking for a nostalgic flash back.
"Velvet Goldmine" is wildly entertaining, even for those not involved (or not alive) in the era. And no one can argue the uniqueness of the film. However, the sheer strangeness throughout the movie gave the impression that Haynes tried too hard to be provocative, outlandish, and controversial.
Detached from reality, the plot line played out more like a music video than a video about music. And although actor Jonathan Rhys Meyers had the blank stare of a drugged-out superstar down pat, he failed to convey the deeper aspects of the character without looking silly.
Monday, January 25, 2010
Monday, January 18, 2010
21st Century Holmes: An Improvement on Original?
Full of explosions and fight scenes, this "Sherlock Holmes" starring Robert Downey Jr. is not consistent with the general image of classic Sherlock Holmes. Although arguably more true to the original Holmes of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's books with his erratic behavior and drug abuse than the ultra-intelligent, stiff detectives of popular portrayals of Holmes, many fans are still up in arms. True to character or not, Robert Downey Jr. plays a Sherlock Holmes with a dynamic personality that is more entertaining than any Holmes before him.
The movie begins where most movies end: Sherlock Holmes and his partner John Watson arrive on the scene of a ritual murder just in time to save the girl and catch the killer. However, after being hanged, Lord Blackwood returns from the dead to take on more important matters than killing girls—taking over the world. Through black magic Lord Blackwood weaves a web of seemingly impossible scenarios while Holmes unravels the case through evaluation and logic.
Director Guy Ritchie, known for his action-packed films "Snatch," "Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels," and "RocknRolla" turned this 21st century Sherlock Holmes into a crime-fighting expert, with an emphasis on the fighting. Throughout the movie, Holmes and Watson encounter various henchmen of Lord Blackwood who they fight with almost superhero skills. In one scene, Holmes even fights in a dank basement boxing ring. He feeds the appetites of a special-effects-hungry audience by narrating his moves in slow motion before the scene plays in real time.
Although Robert Downey Jr. only narrates two scenes, the entire movie is shot with Holmes' perspective in mind: clues are shown for a second or two to suggest that Holmes has noticed them, voices are distorted when Holmes is dazed, and the music—often featuring a banjo—does not fit the setting but helps convey the silliness of Holmes.
Aside from the music, all of the elements of the film hold true to an 1890s London. The grimy citizens of England fit into the colorless scenery seamlessly. Even the main characters, though better dressed, do not stick out on the crowded streets. Irene Adler, played by Rachael Adams, makes a grand appearance and a lasting impression in her brightly colored dresses. The stark contrast between her and the rest of the scene uses Holmes' point of view to imply his love for her, as the rest of the world is drowned out by her beauty.
The movie ends where most movies begin: a man murdered and an important item stolen. A villain introduced earlier in the movie, Professor Moriarty, is apparently at the root of this crime, yet his intentions unknown. A case is opened as a Sherlock Holmes II is set up.
The movie begins where most movies end: Sherlock Holmes and his partner John Watson arrive on the scene of a ritual murder just in time to save the girl and catch the killer. However, after being hanged, Lord Blackwood returns from the dead to take on more important matters than killing girls—taking over the world. Through black magic Lord Blackwood weaves a web of seemingly impossible scenarios while Holmes unravels the case through evaluation and logic.
Director Guy Ritchie, known for his action-packed films "Snatch," "Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels," and "RocknRolla" turned this 21st century Sherlock Holmes into a crime-fighting expert, with an emphasis on the fighting. Throughout the movie, Holmes and Watson encounter various henchmen of Lord Blackwood who they fight with almost superhero skills. In one scene, Holmes even fights in a dank basement boxing ring. He feeds the appetites of a special-effects-hungry audience by narrating his moves in slow motion before the scene plays in real time.
Although Robert Downey Jr. only narrates two scenes, the entire movie is shot with Holmes' perspective in mind: clues are shown for a second or two to suggest that Holmes has noticed them, voices are distorted when Holmes is dazed, and the music—often featuring a banjo—does not fit the setting but helps convey the silliness of Holmes.
Aside from the music, all of the elements of the film hold true to an 1890s London. The grimy citizens of England fit into the colorless scenery seamlessly. Even the main characters, though better dressed, do not stick out on the crowded streets. Irene Adler, played by Rachael Adams, makes a grand appearance and a lasting impression in her brightly colored dresses. The stark contrast between her and the rest of the scene uses Holmes' point of view to imply his love for her, as the rest of the world is drowned out by her beauty.
The movie ends where most movies begin: a man murdered and an important item stolen. A villain introduced earlier in the movie, Professor Moriarty, is apparently at the root of this crime, yet his intentions unknown. A case is opened as a Sherlock Holmes II is set up.
Other Reviews on Holmes
Although this review is from a website named "Movie Mom," I found it to touch on a lot of aspects of the film that we discussed in class and use visual words.
http://blog.beliefnet.com/moviemom/2009/12/sherlock-holmes.html
Sherlock Holmes
Perhaps even the great detective himself could not solve the mystery of why Sherlock Holmes holds the Guinness Book of World Records title for having been portrayed on screen than any other fictional character, with more than 75 actors in more than 200 movies. And it would be hard to find any movie and television detective who does not draw something from Holmes' mastery of the power of observation ("Lie to Me," "The Mentalist"). There is something endlessly fascinating about the idea that someone could look at us and see what others are hiding from us, and even about the idea that he could see what we are hiding, too.
So here we are again with another Sherlock Holmes, this one from Robert Downey, Jr. and director Guy Ritchie. And that means an edgier, grubbier, somewhat younger Holmes. While stage and screen versions of the stories have generally focused on Holmes as a sort of hyper-controlled super-brain with little emotion or physicality, this version expands on a reference in the original Arthur Conan Doyle texts to Holmes' being adept at "baritsu," a form of martial arts and has a two-fisted Holmes who fights bad guys and even mixes it up just for fun. It also focuses on the books' notion that Holmes was good at detection because he was bad at everything else and that unless he was completely involved in a case he considered worth his attention he does not have any other way to interact with the world.
Dr. Watson, portrayed as a bit stuffy and more of a biographer than a partner for Holmes, in this version is played by the not-at-all-stuffy Jude Law as someone who struggles with his own demons (a gambling problem) and loves the adrenaline rush as well as the sense of justice and the fun of fighting along side his talented friend. But things are changing. He has met a woman he wants to marry and that means moving out of the flat on Baker Street he shares with Holmes and less time for crime-fighting.
Downey is always at his considerable best with a character who has some boundary issues and his Holmes is as taut as the violin strings he plucks between cases. His eyes are the most expressive on screen since Al Pacino, large, liquid, knowing. Downey conveys the almost compulsive, almost Aspergers aspects of the Holmes character. In one scene, he waits for Watson at a restaurant, unable to stop noticing the dark, the sad, the painful at the tables around him. He seems to drink it all in through his eyes, ears, and pores on his skin. And his need to understand and conquer the worst of humanity outside him seems connected to a struggle within himself -- and between him and Irene Adler, for Sherlock Holmes, Conan Doyle wrote, "the woman." Here she is deliciously played by Rachel McAdams, suiting his description of Irene as having "the face of the most beautiful of women, and the mind of the most resolute of men," and fetching in bustle and boy-clothes.
Production designer Sarah Greenwood has done a magnificent job of creating Victorian London and part of the fun is seeing some of the now-iconic structures still under construction -- always a handy place for a fight scene, too. Ritchie's kinetic camerawork lends a muscular energy that keeps the story from feeling antique. And getting used to a young, energetic Holmes who can throw a punch is not as difficult as you might think.
But other parts of the movie do not work as well. Ritchie, whose best films celebrate the gritty underworld of big and small-time crooks, seems to be more comfortable for some of the mid-level thieves, arsonists, and hoodlums Holmes and Watson run into, and every time they leave the scene a little bit of the life of the film goes with them. Mark Strong is not given nearly enough to do as the villain (titled, of course) and the mystery is not clever enough to make the resolution satisfying. You don't have to be a super-sleuth to see the holes in the plot. Downey is better detecting than he is trading odd couple banter with Law, but so would anyone. Who could have imagined that in a Sherlock Holmes movie the fight scenes replacing the deductions would ring truer than the dialogue replacing "Elementary, my dear Watson?"
Also, this review from the NY Times is detailed and well-written.
http://movies.nytimes.com/2009/12/25/movies/25sherlock.html
The Brawling Supersleuth of 221B Baker Street Socks It to ’Em
Early in “Sherlock Holmes” — and also again, later on — the famous sleuth demonstrates his ratiocinative powers in a way undreamed of by his creator, Arthur Conan Doyle. Observing a thug standing guard over a horrible crime in a dimly lighted church, Holmes calculates just how to surprise the man, disarm him and beat him senseless. The audience follows his thought process through slow-motion pre-enactment, observing how the laws of anatomy and physics will be used to snap bones, gouge organs and turn flesh into pulp. Then, having seen it diagramed once on screen, we see it all again, with more noise, in real time. Elementary!
Doyle’s Holmes, who arrived in Victorian pop culture in 1887 (with the publication of “A Study in Scarlet”), has adapted since then to changes in taste and entertainment technology. He was a proto-superhero, amenable to all kinds of elaboration and variation, and even a measure of mockery, as long as the basics of the brand were respected. For most of his existence he has lived at 221B Baker Street, smoking a pipe, playing the violin and sticking faithfully to bachelorhood and his belief in the functional elegance of the deerstalker hat.
But Holmes has never been much for physical violence, and the chief innovation of this new, franchise-ready incarnation, directed by Guy Ritchie and played by Robert Downey Jr., is that he is, in addition to everything else, a brawling, head-butting, fist-in-the-gut, knee-in-the-groin action hero.
A smart one, for sure, and as played by Mr. Downey, with his characteristic twitchy wit and haggard insouciance, he has more intelligence than the movie knows what to do with. (His Holmes has also lost the deerstalker, favoring battered porkpie- or bowlerlike headwear, perhaps in homage to Charlie Chaplin, another character Mr. Downey has played.)
Of course intelligence has never ranked high among either Mr. Ritchie’s interests or his attributes as a filmmaker. His primary desire, most successfully realized early in his directing career, in “Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels” and “Snatch,” has always been to be cool: to make cool movies about cool guys with cool stuff. Yes, “Sherlock Holmes” is kind of cool. But that’s not really a compliment.
Still, it’s Christmas, and the teenage boys in the house have fructose in their bloodstreams and time on their hands, so let’s call it half a compliment. There are worse things than loutish, laddish cool, and as a series of poses and stunts, “Sherlock Holmes” is intermittently diverting.
The visual style — a smoky, greasy, steam-punk rendering of Victorian London, full of soot and guts and bad teeth and period clothes — shows some undeniable flair. And so do the kinetic chases and scrapes that lead us through the city, as Holmes and his pal Watson (Jude Law) scramble to unravel a conspiracy so diabolical that it fails to be interesting. Best of all is the banter between Mr. Downey and Mr. Law, who is looser and more mischievous than he’s allowed himself to be in quite some time. The mustache suits him.
Speaking of which: the beard is Rachel McAdams. She is inserted into the picture in a pretty, flouncy red dress to add a splash of color and dispel a few hints of homoerotic subtext. Holmes and Watson are longtime roommates, with an Oscar-and-Felix routine of quarrelsome affection. Watson’s engagement to a page of half-written dialogue named Mary (Kelly Reilly) sends Holmes into a snit of jealousy, which loses some of its interesting implications when Ms. McAdams shows up as a luscious thief named Irene Adler. I wonder: is she an ancestor of Jake and Jane Adler, the main characters of “It’s Complicated,” which also opens on Friday? Or does a movie opening on Christmas need to have a character named Adler in it for some reason?
Ms. McAdams, in any case, is a perfectly charming actress and performs gamely as the third wheel of this action-bromance tricycle. But Irene, though she figures in a few of Conan Doyle’s stories, feels in this movie more like a somewhat cynical commercial contrivance. She offers a little something for the ladies — who, according to airtight Hollywood corporate logic, are more likely to see a movie like this one if there’s a feisty woman in it — and also something for the lads, who, much as they may dig fights and explosions and guns and chases, also like girls.
Just like Holmes and Watson! They really do, in spite of the barely sublimated physical passion they manifest for each other in nearly every scene. I’m sure Warner Brothers would like me to change the subject and tell you about the amazing diabolical conspiracy that tests Holmes’s ingenuity, along with his faith in the supremacy of reason.
It seems that an evil aristocrat (Mark Strong), executed for a series of murders, returns from the dead to mobilize an ancient secret society that he may have time-traveled into a Dan Brown novel to learn about. Doesn’t that sound fascinating? I thought not. But there will be a sequel, for which this frantic, harmless movie serves as an extended teaser, and it looks as if it might feature Holmes’s literary archnemesis, Professor Moriarty. No doubt Holmes will break a chair over Moriarty’s head, kidney-punch him and kick him in the face. Wittily, though, like the great detective he is.
http://blog.beliefnet.com/moviemom/2009/12/sherlock-holmes.html
Sherlock Holmes
Perhaps even the great detective himself could not solve the mystery of why Sherlock Holmes holds the Guinness Book of World Records title for having been portrayed on screen than any other fictional character, with more than 75 actors in more than 200 movies. And it would be hard to find any movie and television detective who does not draw something from Holmes' mastery of the power of observation ("Lie to Me," "The Mentalist"). There is something endlessly fascinating about the idea that someone could look at us and see what others are hiding from us, and even about the idea that he could see what we are hiding, too.
So here we are again with another Sherlock Holmes, this one from Robert Downey, Jr. and director Guy Ritchie. And that means an edgier, grubbier, somewhat younger Holmes. While stage and screen versions of the stories have generally focused on Holmes as a sort of hyper-controlled super-brain with little emotion or physicality, this version expands on a reference in the original Arthur Conan Doyle texts to Holmes' being adept at "baritsu," a form of martial arts and has a two-fisted Holmes who fights bad guys and even mixes it up just for fun. It also focuses on the books' notion that Holmes was good at detection because he was bad at everything else and that unless he was completely involved in a case he considered worth his attention he does not have any other way to interact with the world.
Dr. Watson, portrayed as a bit stuffy and more of a biographer than a partner for Holmes, in this version is played by the not-at-all-stuffy Jude Law as someone who struggles with his own demons (a gambling problem) and loves the adrenaline rush as well as the sense of justice and the fun of fighting along side his talented friend. But things are changing. He has met a woman he wants to marry and that means moving out of the flat on Baker Street he shares with Holmes and less time for crime-fighting.
Downey is always at his considerable best with a character who has some boundary issues and his Holmes is as taut as the violin strings he plucks between cases. His eyes are the most expressive on screen since Al Pacino, large, liquid, knowing. Downey conveys the almost compulsive, almost Aspergers aspects of the Holmes character. In one scene, he waits for Watson at a restaurant, unable to stop noticing the dark, the sad, the painful at the tables around him. He seems to drink it all in through his eyes, ears, and pores on his skin. And his need to understand and conquer the worst of humanity outside him seems connected to a struggle within himself -- and between him and Irene Adler, for Sherlock Holmes, Conan Doyle wrote, "the woman." Here she is deliciously played by Rachel McAdams, suiting his description of Irene as having "the face of the most beautiful of women, and the mind of the most resolute of men," and fetching in bustle and boy-clothes.
Production designer Sarah Greenwood has done a magnificent job of creating Victorian London and part of the fun is seeing some of the now-iconic structures still under construction -- always a handy place for a fight scene, too. Ritchie's kinetic camerawork lends a muscular energy that keeps the story from feeling antique. And getting used to a young, energetic Holmes who can throw a punch is not as difficult as you might think.
But other parts of the movie do not work as well. Ritchie, whose best films celebrate the gritty underworld of big and small-time crooks, seems to be more comfortable for some of the mid-level thieves, arsonists, and hoodlums Holmes and Watson run into, and every time they leave the scene a little bit of the life of the film goes with them. Mark Strong is not given nearly enough to do as the villain (titled, of course) and the mystery is not clever enough to make the resolution satisfying. You don't have to be a super-sleuth to see the holes in the plot. Downey is better detecting than he is trading odd couple banter with Law, but so would anyone. Who could have imagined that in a Sherlock Holmes movie the fight scenes replacing the deductions would ring truer than the dialogue replacing "Elementary, my dear Watson?"
Also, this review from the NY Times is detailed and well-written.
http://movies.nytimes.com/2009/12/25/movies/25sherlock.html
The Brawling Supersleuth of 221B Baker Street Socks It to ’Em
Early in “Sherlock Holmes” — and also again, later on — the famous sleuth demonstrates his ratiocinative powers in a way undreamed of by his creator, Arthur Conan Doyle. Observing a thug standing guard over a horrible crime in a dimly lighted church, Holmes calculates just how to surprise the man, disarm him and beat him senseless. The audience follows his thought process through slow-motion pre-enactment, observing how the laws of anatomy and physics will be used to snap bones, gouge organs and turn flesh into pulp. Then, having seen it diagramed once on screen, we see it all again, with more noise, in real time. Elementary!
Doyle’s Holmes, who arrived in Victorian pop culture in 1887 (with the publication of “A Study in Scarlet”), has adapted since then to changes in taste and entertainment technology. He was a proto-superhero, amenable to all kinds of elaboration and variation, and even a measure of mockery, as long as the basics of the brand were respected. For most of his existence he has lived at 221B Baker Street, smoking a pipe, playing the violin and sticking faithfully to bachelorhood and his belief in the functional elegance of the deerstalker hat.
But Holmes has never been much for physical violence, and the chief innovation of this new, franchise-ready incarnation, directed by Guy Ritchie and played by Robert Downey Jr., is that he is, in addition to everything else, a brawling, head-butting, fist-in-the-gut, knee-in-the-groin action hero.
A smart one, for sure, and as played by Mr. Downey, with his characteristic twitchy wit and haggard insouciance, he has more intelligence than the movie knows what to do with. (His Holmes has also lost the deerstalker, favoring battered porkpie- or bowlerlike headwear, perhaps in homage to Charlie Chaplin, another character Mr. Downey has played.)
Of course intelligence has never ranked high among either Mr. Ritchie’s interests or his attributes as a filmmaker. His primary desire, most successfully realized early in his directing career, in “Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels” and “Snatch,” has always been to be cool: to make cool movies about cool guys with cool stuff. Yes, “Sherlock Holmes” is kind of cool. But that’s not really a compliment.
Still, it’s Christmas, and the teenage boys in the house have fructose in their bloodstreams and time on their hands, so let’s call it half a compliment. There are worse things than loutish, laddish cool, and as a series of poses and stunts, “Sherlock Holmes” is intermittently diverting.
The visual style — a smoky, greasy, steam-punk rendering of Victorian London, full of soot and guts and bad teeth and period clothes — shows some undeniable flair. And so do the kinetic chases and scrapes that lead us through the city, as Holmes and his pal Watson (Jude Law) scramble to unravel a conspiracy so diabolical that it fails to be interesting. Best of all is the banter between Mr. Downey and Mr. Law, who is looser and more mischievous than he’s allowed himself to be in quite some time. The mustache suits him.
Speaking of which: the beard is Rachel McAdams. She is inserted into the picture in a pretty, flouncy red dress to add a splash of color and dispel a few hints of homoerotic subtext. Holmes and Watson are longtime roommates, with an Oscar-and-Felix routine of quarrelsome affection. Watson’s engagement to a page of half-written dialogue named Mary (Kelly Reilly) sends Holmes into a snit of jealousy, which loses some of its interesting implications when Ms. McAdams shows up as a luscious thief named Irene Adler. I wonder: is she an ancestor of Jake and Jane Adler, the main characters of “It’s Complicated,” which also opens on Friday? Or does a movie opening on Christmas need to have a character named Adler in it for some reason?
Ms. McAdams, in any case, is a perfectly charming actress and performs gamely as the third wheel of this action-bromance tricycle. But Irene, though she figures in a few of Conan Doyle’s stories, feels in this movie more like a somewhat cynical commercial contrivance. She offers a little something for the ladies — who, according to airtight Hollywood corporate logic, are more likely to see a movie like this one if there’s a feisty woman in it — and also something for the lads, who, much as they may dig fights and explosions and guns and chases, also like girls.
Just like Holmes and Watson! They really do, in spite of the barely sublimated physical passion they manifest for each other in nearly every scene. I’m sure Warner Brothers would like me to change the subject and tell you about the amazing diabolical conspiracy that tests Holmes’s ingenuity, along with his faith in the supremacy of reason.
It seems that an evil aristocrat (Mark Strong), executed for a series of murders, returns from the dead to mobilize an ancient secret society that he may have time-traveled into a Dan Brown novel to learn about. Doesn’t that sound fascinating? I thought not. But there will be a sequel, for which this frantic, harmless movie serves as an extended teaser, and it looks as if it might feature Holmes’s literary archnemesis, Professor Moriarty. No doubt Holmes will break a chair over Moriarty’s head, kidney-punch him and kick him in the face. Wittily, though, like the great detective he is.
Monday, January 11, 2010
Movie Review: Sherlock Holmes
Beware: Guy Ritchie's Sherlock Holmes is not the Holmes of your grandfather. Indeed, Robert Downey Jr. plays a rebellious, witty, introverted, punch-throwing detective in a world where fist fights and explosions are often a part of solving a crime; a world created to satisfy the appetite of a movie-going public that expects pricey special effects to be a part of every film. Yet, even though this Sherlock Holmes of the 21st century is not exactly true to that of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's books, he is just as entertaining.
The movie begins where most movies end: Sherlock Holmes and his partner John Watson (Jude Law) arrive on the scene of a ritual murder just in time to save the girl and catch the killer. However, the case does not end there as Lord Blackwood (Mark Strong), returns from the dead to take on more serious matters than killing women—taking over the world. Blackwood weaves a web of seemingly impossibly scenarios through his magic work while Holmes tries to unravel the story through evaluation and logic.
Wound together with comedy and romance, the film features both one-liners and the ongoing humorous relationship between Holmes and Watson, resembling that of a married couple. Romance, also, was apparent in the film not only through Watson and his wife-to-be—although the chemistry between the couple seemed weak—but also between Holmes and his criminal love interest, Irene Adler (Rachel McAdams).
Although the film is only directly narrated by Holmes in two scenes, almost every scene features Holmes, and throughout the movie the audience is forced to see through Holmes' eyes through camera and audio work. Viewers are introduced to the main character at a very dynamic time: His partner and best friend is getting married, leaving his home with Holmes, and ending his detective work. The audience feels an immediate connection with Sherlock Holmes because he is the entrance way into his world; just as he is obsessed with delving into the minds of others, the viewer is not only given permission, but required to see into the mind of Sherlock Holmes.
Overall, many of the fight scenes were overdone and unnecessary, but the entertaining cast of characters, realistic scenery, and perfect balance between comedy, romance, action, and mystery made this film very enjoyable. The clues to the mystery were easy to miss, but with explanation from Holmes were easy to follow, making this 134 minute movie fly by. Also, with obvious room for a sequel left at the end, I will be looking forward to the release of Sherlock Holmes 2.
The movie begins where most movies end: Sherlock Holmes and his partner John Watson (Jude Law) arrive on the scene of a ritual murder just in time to save the girl and catch the killer. However, the case does not end there as Lord Blackwood (Mark Strong), returns from the dead to take on more serious matters than killing women—taking over the world. Blackwood weaves a web of seemingly impossibly scenarios through his magic work while Holmes tries to unravel the story through evaluation and logic.
Wound together with comedy and romance, the film features both one-liners and the ongoing humorous relationship between Holmes and Watson, resembling that of a married couple. Romance, also, was apparent in the film not only through Watson and his wife-to-be—although the chemistry between the couple seemed weak—but also between Holmes and his criminal love interest, Irene Adler (Rachel McAdams).
Although the film is only directly narrated by Holmes in two scenes, almost every scene features Holmes, and throughout the movie the audience is forced to see through Holmes' eyes through camera and audio work. Viewers are introduced to the main character at a very dynamic time: His partner and best friend is getting married, leaving his home with Holmes, and ending his detective work. The audience feels an immediate connection with Sherlock Holmes because he is the entrance way into his world; just as he is obsessed with delving into the minds of others, the viewer is not only given permission, but required to see into the mind of Sherlock Holmes.
Overall, many of the fight scenes were overdone and unnecessary, but the entertaining cast of characters, realistic scenery, and perfect balance between comedy, romance, action, and mystery made this film very enjoyable. The clues to the mystery were easy to miss, but with explanation from Holmes were easy to follow, making this 134 minute movie fly by. Also, with obvious room for a sequel left at the end, I will be looking forward to the release of Sherlock Holmes 2.
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