Rating: 1/5
Sherlock Holmes is not James Bond. He is not Jason Bourne, or MacGyver, or John McClane, or or an Inglorious Basterd. I have read just about every single Sherlock Holmes novel and story, I've seen the Basil Rathbone movies, and the excellent BBC show Sherlock. I grew up with Sherlock Holmes, and that is only one reason I hated this movie.
Sherlock Holmes (Robert Downey, Jr.) is back with a newly married Watson (Jude Law) in tow. Holmes still doesn't want to accept Watson's matrimony, and drags him into another wacky case. As it turns out, evil college professor James Moriarty (Jared Harris) wants to incite war between France and Germany and reap the profits. After figuring this out off-screen and rescuing Madam Simza (Noomi Rapace) from Moriarty's assassins, Holmes needs to stop a villain who is always one step ahead.
Ok, as much as I like RDJ, giving him a pipe and a British accent does not a Sherlock Holmes make. Neither does having him use big words and deduce conclusions from ridiculous and impossible evidence. Neither does having him play out fights in his head so we have to watch every stupid victorian kung-fu scene twice. A way to make a Holmes nerd like me happy would be to have a) a plot that actually makes sense, b) pacing and buildup, and c) little things like character development and actual detective work. Also, having Moriarty put a big "M" on everything probably isn't the best idea either.
But no, bad Jess. You're a film critic, don't get weighed down by book nostalgia. Anyways, say what you want about the first movie, at least it made sense. Not a whole lot mind you, but it did. At least it established that Mark Strong had combat training, whereas Moriarty is a "boxing champ" who delivers judo chops and grapples. At least in the last one the amount of henchmen didn't change between shots and there wasn't the stupid fast-slow-fast thing every second. All this combined with schizophrenic direction and editing, I got genuinely dizzy at parts.
Both "Sherlock Holmes" movies are bad examples of Hollywood reboots, but the first actually had Holmes as a detective who stumbles onto something huge, not a wisecracking version of Batman. Seriously, there's no sense of danger (Holmes "dies" around five times), most of the action doesn't have anything to do with anything, and there's this weird undercurrent of homoeroticism. Various parts hint pretty strongly that Holmes is trying to get Watson to marry him instead of his wife. But neither movie is Sherlock Holmes, and this one isn't even a good action movie. Just don't bother.
No comments:
Post a Comment