Sherlock Holmes: 221B-plus
(On a not-unrelated note: Can we collectively resolve for 2010 to retire the term “steampunk”? Perhaps the term isn’t as irritating to those who didn’t already live through the style in its “NuRo” incarnation, but when David Denby has used the term, it’s officially tired. Furthermore, it’s lazy. Not every buttoned boot or cast-iron interior-design pretense is “steampunk.” Use your words, people — your other words.)
The movie itself, I enjoyed. It’s getting mediocre word of mouth, much of which concerns the fact that it’s an action movie, which: excuse me? Disapproving of the genre shift is one thing; I don’t have anything invested in fidelity to Doyle’s Holmes-verse myself, but it’s a valid point of view. But Guy Ritchie has been attached to the project since God was a boy, and once you know that, you can’t really expect a pitch-perfect love poem written in fog and addressed to the Baker Street Irregulars.
Not that it’s a perfect movie; it isn’t. The villain is largely MacGuffin, which is fine, but the portentous pacing of his scenes isn’t, and Mark Strong plays Lord Blackwood too subdued. (He also looks like the love child of Stanley Tucci and Tony Hale. Such a love child is theoretically awesome, but ineffective here.) The Masonic-ish conspiracy is era-accurate, but reads to present-day audiences as quaint and silly. A couple of the action sequences go on too long, given that the editing is so hectic that it’s hard to tell at times what’s happening.
And Denby does make a good point in his review, craven use of “steampunk” aside, calling the film “a franchise. Or, at least, a would-be franchise.” I have no problem per se with sequels upon sequels, but I’d rather have them proceed organically from the material, instead of having the material built to allow them — seeing, hanging off the original, all the three-way joints and untied threads that will allow future installments to be attached. Moriarty’s presence is shot spookily, but the presentation seems cynically coy instead of genuinely mysterious: if we want to see him, we’ll have to see SHII in three years’ time…or that’s the idea, which ignores the ability of the internet to get that information.
That aside, the movie in the main isn’t cynical; it’s fun, and it takes pleasure in itself. It’s paced well, and the bromance between Holmes and Watson is played perfectly; I could have watched Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law scuffle over that vest for the film’s full running time. Downey is excellent as usual, not letting either the role or the special effects overwhelm the human reactions (see especially: his squeaks and grunts during fight scenes; and the flickers of pain that come and go in his conversations with Rachel McAdams as Irene). He seems at home.
So does Law, in a way that’s new for him. I like Law as an actor, looks aside; he has an easy charm. But he often seems posed, as though the director is leveraging his face at the expense of what’s ostensibly happening onscreen. It’s quite a face, but I don’t know that Law’s allure proceeds entirely from his looks, and it’s fun to see what happens when a director doesn’t appear to care much about them. Ritchie puts him under a mustache and hat and lets him proceed in a more businesslike fashion; he gives Law credit. It works.
Tags: Arthur Conan Doyle David Denby Guy Ritchie Jude Law Mark Strong movies Rachel McAdams Robert Downey Jr. shut up steampunk Stanley Tucci Tony Hale
As revisionings go, I’m already spoiled on the Holmes/Watson bit by “Without A Clue”. It will be intriguing to see for myself how well Ritchie spins it all in another direction, and I’m glad to see you didn’t think it sucked right out loud or anything.
Roommate said he was love child of Stanley Tucci and Andy Garcia…which I thought was also spot on.
Also, the lack of fidelity has been overplayed, in my opinion. I grew up with the Sherlock Holmes stories—mostly watching the Jeremy Brett Sherlock with my dad—and I made a point of seeing this with him (Dad, not Jeremy) so that if I hated it, I’d be with someone who understood. And then we both loved it.
The fidelity complaints I’ve seen come down to “I don’t like how they turned Sherlock Holmes into a punchy Dr. House”.
But Holmes was always a punchy Dr. House. House is Holmes from the sidekick (James Watson/James Wilson) to the brilliance to the total lack of social skills to the drug habit to the lack of respect for the rules. They even dropped an Irene Adler reference in a couple of seasons ago. All House is missing is Holmes’s boxing and disguise skills.
I saw the movie with friends while in Chicago over the weekend and enjoyed the hell out of it.
I confess I spent maybe slightly more time studying how Rachel McAdam’s eye makeup was done than was strictly warranted, though.
I think Jude Law is underrated as an actor—he was really the ONLY person in the cameo crapfest that was “Cold Mountain” who looked like he belonged there and who seemed to approach the role with the grim seriousness required. (Although Natalie Portman came pretty close; strange that both she and JL should often have to work so hard against their amazing beauty.)
Sigh. I will watch Jude Law do almost ANYTHING. I mean, I sat through eXistenZ AND Music From Another Room (which has The Piv but also Gretchen Mol). I haven’t seen Sherlock yet but I shall. Oh yes.
Did anyone get the sense that SH is being set up to franchise out like James Bond?
Actually, it is said to be fairly faithful to the books, if less so to the earlier screen adaptations.
In the books, he was a skilled boxer, a bit manic depressive, his pipe was straight, and his hat was a bowler. Hollywood took a lot of creative license, as per usual. A little known fact – his pipe became curved for the TV show because it wouldn’t block the actor’s face.
From what I understand, the only thing they left out was the drug use. Evidently, Sherlock liked his opium and cocaine.
Personally, I much prefer this version, and now I really want to read the books.
@Jaybird – YES! Love “Without a Clue”!
Question – What is “steampunk”??? I’ve never heard this term before.
FYI to the Jude Law lovers – I’m not a fan myself, but my sister saw him in “Hamlet” on Broadway and said he was fabulous.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steampunk
Saw the movie Saturday night. I really dug it. I enjoy Downey, but don’t have any special love for Law and I thought they both knocked it out of the park.
I am usually bugged by movies that have only one color setting (in this case browns and greys), but even that didn’t really hamper my enjoyment. I would consider seeing it again in the theatre, so it gets an A-minus from me.
I also liked that they didn’t go down a rabbit trail with the “sexy side” of Sherlock Holmes. The previews made me a little concerned that they might shoehorn that in whether it made sense or not (I mean, how many times could they show the tied-to-the-bed scene in the promos?).
I guess my point is that Guy Ritchie isn’t know for restraint, so it was sort of nice to see what he could do while working within the PG-13 range.
I do want to see this, for much the reasons Hollie touched on — Holmes Original Flavor was a depressive and a bit of a brawler. A little worried by what they did with Irene Adler, though.
And yes, he begins and ends The Sign of Four with cocaine injections.
And I continue to root for the embarrassingly one-sided Bunting v. Denby smackdown.
I’m gratified to hear that Ritchie didn’t overdo the Holmes-as-sexual-being angle. The porny Holmes fanfic my best friend wrote in high school STILL haunts me.
Not to be nitpicky, Hollie, but the curved pipe was an innovation of William Gillette’s in the late 19th Century for his stage production. Also, in the stories he did wear a fore-and-aft cap and Inverness cape, but only when traveling to the the countryside – never in the city, where he would wear either a bowler or a top hat, depending on the need.
Yes, I am a mega Sherlock Holmes geek.
(BTW, the movie that got me into reading the Holmes stories was The Seven-Per-Cent Solution – which is a reference to his drug use. Never underestimate the power of a movie to get a person to read the source material.)
Geez, Jaybird; just reading the phrase ‘porny Holmes fanfic’ will haunt me. ::shudders::
I adore adore adore Lock Stock & Two Smoking Barrels, so I’m happy to give GR a wide lane to drive. (Snatch was likeable if too derivative of that, and dadgum, I’ll even admit to digging Rocknrolla fiercely.) That said, I’ve no particular interest in this project. I’ll catch it on tv when the time comes.
One thing I did like about the film (among many) was the fact that the mystery, silly as it could be, was nicely tied up at the end, with many little bows and knots–the rhodedendron poison, the way the vault was blown out, all the little side trips did indeed mail a postcard to the final act.
I was worried there’d be a big clinch at the end between Holmes and Adler, but Ritchie rummaged around in that sweatshirt he had balled in the back of the closet since RocknRolla and found a little bit of subtlety amidst the lint. Nicely done.
And of course, Downey, Law, and the Downey/Law lovefest that was the movie. My husband said he could see why they cut the “they’ve been flirting like this all day” line from the trailer, and he’s right: calling it out in any way would have spoiled everything. Much better to just have the constant arguement that’s gone on for a decade, with pauses for punches and door-kicking. Purrrrrrr.
Also a note for Hollie: they didn’t necessarily leave the drug use out entirely, merely made it very subtle. Given, I have only yet seen the movie once, but at one point Watson comes in and remarks on something that Holmes has taken that contributed to his current debauched condition, and says, “they use that for eye surgery, you know”, or words to that effect. Not that I know what they were using for eye surgery in the late 19th century in England, but I’d be surprised if it WASN’T an opiate.
(What would be sort of hilarious would be to have RDJ starring in two franchises simultaneously in which the protagonist is known for his substance abuse, and for it to be hinted at in the first movie and then done more explicitly in the second. This assumes of course that Iron Man 2 will feature more of Tony Stark’s alcoholism, while a putative SH2 would be more overt about the cocaine.)
This long-time Holmes fan loved the movie, I should say. I really like RDJ’s take on Holmes, but was blown away by a movie Watson who was finally young, attractive, and an ex-military ass-kicker. (I grant you, the Brett adaptations did Watson pretty well, too, but I thought Law’s Watson to be the best I’ve ever seen.)
Not that I know what they were using for eye surgery in the late 19th century in England, but I’d be surprised if it WASN’T an opiate.
The script was pretty clever about that, I thought, because there’s plausible deniability in the way it’s presented (he’s experimenting on the dog, e.g.), but you can infer that he’s using them himself.
I was disappointed in McAdams as Irene Adler, but I’m a Holmes purist. Irene (that’s pronounced “Eye- reh – neh”, not “Eye-reen”) was a world-renowned opera singer, specifically a contralto. Her voice should have been rich and mellifluous, instead of flat and squeaky. Plus, I really don’t buy McAdams as any type of adventuress.
But Jude Law might be my favorite Watson of all time; slightly flawed but loyal to the end.
The best Moriarty reveal in a movie was at the very tail end of “Young Sherlock Holmes”. Wish this one had been as subtle and mysterious.
penguinlady, true dat. That was the first time I learned you could be rewarded for sitting through the key grip and costuming credits.
I just figured out last week what steampunk was! Can’t we wait to retire it until I’ve had a few weeks to faux-ridicule my friends who still don’t know?
Ok, I have to go w/ the House/Holmes thing… my husband (who is never wrong, just ask him) says that :
Dr. House is based off of the Sherlock Holmes books, which is awesome because the Sherlock Holmes character itself was based off of a physician that the author knew, as in, someone who took little bits of evidence and compiled it together into a full diagnosis.
I am a bit leery about this movie because I HATE Irene Adler. She is the most overrated Sherlock Holmes heroine. (Even Watson himself would have paired Holmes with Violet Hunter). If we are going to set him up to be someone’s advesary why not Mrs. Rucastle who certainly had a grudge to bear. I would even have preferred the invention of Adventureress Jane Moran, though they are probably saving The Final Solution and the Empty House for a later installment. The Irene Adler inclusion is even more grating because this movie is set on the advent of Watson’s wedding and Irene did not come on the scene until some time after the wedding. Why not The Sign of Four?
I don’t buy Rachel McAdams as a woman, let alone as any particular character. I’ve never seen her in anything where her gears weren’t clanking audibly.
Not that I know what they were using for eye surgery in the late 19th century in England, but I’d be surprised if it WASN’T an opiate.
That would have been the coke, actually. It’s been used as a topical anesthetic for ENT-type surgeries for a gajillion years. Many hospital pharmacies still stock it and will dispense it on request. That’s why it’s classified as C-II (accepted medical use with severe restrictions) instead of C-I (no accepted medical use).
I’ll stop being a pharmacy nerd now. Sorry.
Sars, you are awesome, I have thought so for a long time . . . but so is steampunk. I’m sorry you don’t like it.
I thought I was the only one getting tired of the term ‘steampunk’. Some of it can be kind of cool, but I’ve definitely overdosed on it this year. It’s like all the people who were goth five years ago are now ‘steampunk’, but the word is getting applied in all sorts of situations where I don’t feel it’s accurate. Like the person saying it knows that the word gets a lot of positive reaction, so they apply it to anything that even kind of fits.
@CraftyLuna: see Alison’s comment (and my original graf on the subject). Steampunk itself I am neutral on; it’s the over-/misuse of the term I dislike. “Turn of the last century” and “steampunk” aren’t always interchangeable, yet you hear it used to categorize everything from ruffled shirts to Audubon prints.
RE: Rachel McAdams – I liked her in “Mean Girls” (sue me LOL), and in “Red Eye” (I’m a sucker for a movie with a quick-thinking, lacrosse-playing, bad-guy punching female lead). But I thought she was about as effective as a cardboard cut-out in “State of Play,” and in just the previews for “Sherlock Holmes” she struck me as being superfluous (haven’t seen the movie yet). Lately she seems to be relying on her wide-eyed stare to will the movie watcher into liking her.
I’ve never seen her in anything where her gears weren’t clanking audibly.
I see you, and raise you season one of ‘Slings & Arrows.’
@Allison: no, thanks for relating that! Always interesting to know.
@penguinlady: words cannot express how deeply attached to “Young Sherlock Holmes” when it came out. That ending made me scream, because I WANTED a sequel so bad, and even at the time knew that there just wasn’t going to be one. :(
re. “Steampunk” — I have to agree that I get irritated to see it misapplied. No, not everything Victorian-y looking is steampunk. It has to involve advanced technology that didn’t exist at the time (or, that existed, taken to a further extreme than it was at the time — like very elaborate zeppelins), and therefore it must involve a science-fiction or science-fantasy element. HG Wells and Jules Verne are the fathers of steampunk. Sherlock Holmes is NOT steampunk, in that Conan Doyle always tried to give explanations for what was going on that were grounded in what was possible at the time.
(Sherlock Holmes could be *done* in a steampunk way. But this movie didn’t actually wind up doing that, even though from the previews it looked like it might. But they pulled it out in the end.)
It’s almost hilarious to browse through Etsy and see how many people are listing any old thing and calling it “steampunk”. NO.
I usually like McAdams — although I still struggle to understand that ugly, obvious wig they lumped her with for Mean Girls — but she’s not doing anything special here. I don’t know who else they could have cast that would have done better with the role as written, though.
Since the term “steampunk” has now appeared on the NCIS spin-off, of all places (albeit hilariously misapplied — CBS seems to think it’s some variant of goth), and is thus known to your grandma, I think we have to officially retire it whether we want to or not, sadly.
@Sars – I like McAdam as well, but as Irene Adler she really didn’t work for me. And I think it links back to what you were saying in your review – the whole character was grafted on to service the potential sequel. She had no chance in that boys’ club movie.
I had equal problem with Mary, Watson’s fiance. Watson as he was portrayed in that movie, should never have been interested in someone so boring and wishy-washy. How much more interesting would it have been if we cared about her relationship with Watson as much as we cared about Holmes’ relationship with Watson.
But Guy Ritchie has been attached to the project since God was a boy, and once you know that, you can’t really expect a pitch-perfect love poem written in fog and addressed to the Baker Street Irregulars.
There is so much I love about the way this sentiment is worded, I don’t even know where to begin.
A…reviewer whose name I have now forgotten (apologies, reviewer!) noted that Rachel Weisz would have been a more appropriate Irene (big agreement on the pronunciation, penguinlady). I can see that; she’s smoky and scrappy in the right way.
As far as I’m concerned, they already did the super-duper-faithful sedate costume-drama Holmes in the Brett adaptation — and hey, even in that one, Holmes gets into fisticuffs with a ruffian and kicks his ass.
So anyone who wants to do Holmes now should probably go somewhere else with it.
Ooooohhhh. Weisz. Hadn’t thought of that, but absolutely.
Probably the best (and one of the earliest cited) examples of steampunk: “Wild, Wild West” (the original series, not that Will Smith shart).
I have had so many conversations about this movie that basically boil down to:
Person: Well [problem with the plot]
Me: But Robert Downey Jr.
Person: But also [script issue]
Me: But… Robert Downey Jr.
Person: And the editing [problem]
Me: Buuuuuut…. Robert Downey Jr.
so, not like a bad review would have put me off seeing it – not like a zillion bad reviews would have put me off seeing it (i also have in recent years developed a real thing for stupid over the top action movies – see also: my undying love for the pirates of the caribbean movies) – but good to know i’m in for some other things besides Robert Downey Jr.
not that I needed them, because, really, y’all… Robert Downey Jr. come on now.
[ Waves hands wildly ] No, no, Allison! We LOVE pharmacy nerds!!
Well, I do, at any rate. As a kid, I used to read things like A History of Anesthesia, books on Dr. Lister, etc. So I LOVE the pharmnerd interjections.
Also? Rachel Weisz is a dandy scrappy heroine especially of the vintage variety, although I’m pretty happy any time I get to see Kate Winslet, too. I’m looking forward to seeing this movie – and I’m happy to see so many other Holmes lovers and Watson defenders. I, too, wish there had been a sequel to Young Sherlock Holmes. *sigh*
I’m a little sorry to see “steampunk” retired – I came across it only a little while ago, myself – which is pretty funny, considering I’ve been a 19thC geek for many many years – and a SF fan, to boot. But steampunk is NOT correctly applied to anything that is merely vintage, or even antique. So, Sars, what do you suggest replacing it with?
“Vintage,” or “antique.” Or “Victorian.” (Or “Edwardian,” which is what people sometimes mean when they’ve actually said “Victorian.”) “Brontean,” whatever, I don’t care, but my understanding is that unless you have a UFO sewn into that bustle, it ain’t “steampunk.”
Another good steampunk example: The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr.
My bad! Sars, I thought you wanted “steampunk” retired for things that actually WERE steampunk, and had an alternative in mind. Heh. Seems to me that all you’re looking for from folks is “accuracy” … so good luck with that!
I’m just so proud, irrationally so, for RDJ. Remember when he was a punchline, a one-man GBC? Ain’t like that no more, is he? Now he’s an actual actor, one who can open a movie. I never thought that would happen, back when he was getting picked up twice a week for passing out in puddles of pee or whatnot.
It’s good to be wrong sometimes. If he can do it, maybe there’s hope for LiLo.
Nah, that’s just crazy talk.
Jaybird: Have you seen RDJ in Restoration? It’s a fabulous movie, and he does a superb job in it as a doctor who redeems himself. RDJ in 17th C attire is a treat not to be missed. I, too, am happy for him.
Jaybird, I think if we all close our eyes and clap our hands for LiLo, she will maybe at least stop designing leggings.
LBD, that’s TOTALLY going on my list. I can’t stomach anything like “The Singing Detective”, because NO. But “Restoration” is a go.
Anything that stops or even slows down the proliferation of leggings is a happy springtime sunshine thing.