![]() McAdams does not have the acting chops for this kind of part but then I have never found Ritchie to be very adept with or kind to female characters.īut this is not deep stuff. Her character is supposedly Holmes’ intellectual equal, but that was not very evident. The only real weak spot is Rachel McAdams. Downey is fantastic as always, and Mark Strong, who I confess I had not heard of before, makes an excellent villain in the grand British tradition. Ritchie, in general, does know how to cast his male performers. The audience is allowed to hear Holmes’ inner calculations of how to overcome a physically more powerful assailant proving to the kids in the audience that brains are generally preferable over brawn. ![]() Kids aren’t going to see Iron Man in a period film without seeing him beat a few guys up. ![]() But then, this is a Hollywood film, so the bigger the better. His style works well with the script, which is, while perhaps not the most engaging story, interesting and fun enough to sustain the film.Īs mentioned, the story here is much bigger than any of Arthur Conan Doyle’s stories it has to be to sustain the two hour running time. His strength lies in director scenes with clever dialogue in such a way that the camera is part of that dialogue his action sequences make excellent use of slow motion and he knows to give his actors room to breathe. ![]() Ritchie might be a one-note director, but he plays that one note very well. This is a popcorn film A better than average one, of course. Not that I wish to grant the film deeper meaning than it has. One whose understanding of the world is so unique and intricate it makes it almost impossible for him to live in. The screenwriters and Ritchie have updated Holmes as this kind of genius madman. But that kind of genius usually comes with a price: a kind of madness, often strange obsessions, a reluctance to observe the niceties of day-to-day life and society. While many of them ignore the darker aspect of the original Holmes (mainly his drug addiction), they insist upon Holmes as an intellectual rather than physical genius. Purists are not going to like this Holmes, though. There’s only one problem: Lord Blackwood, whom they thought had been hung for his crimes on their last case, apparently has risen from the grave and plans to take over the world. John Watson (Jude Law) is soon to leave him for quiet married life. In director Guy Ritchie’s foray into the Holmes canon, he presents a detective (played with immense glee by Robert Downey Jr) who is pompous, filthy, dismissive of official authority, conniving, and a desparate genius. Which is not a necessarily a bad thing the majority of the original Holmes stories would not be big enough for the big screen (the main exception being The Hound of the Baskervilles, another supernatural tale). I have a feeling the screenwriters of the new Sherlock Holmes may have been as well. The young detective cut his teeth not on finding the family jewels, but on cults and devil worshippers. When I was a kid Young Sherlock Holmes was one of my favourite movies (it still is). ![]()
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