Being unfamiliar with the source material or previous interpretations of Sherlock’s adventures on film kind of put me somewhere near the bottom of the list of people really looking forward to this movie. I kind of knew who he was, but I couldn’t have told you a thing about him. Sherlock Holmes is a fictional British detective created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Unorthodox in approach to his investigations, a bit crazy eccentric, dark and mysterious, insecure maybe even homosexual, I didn’t know he was a cocaine addict but that too. The suggestions that were made about the character Sherlock Holmes in this Guy Ritchie flick lacked any real depth, seemed to purposefully avoid the hard facts and at times were ambiguous, because this is a family fun film.
I’ve watched this movie twice now. I didn’t really get into it the first time so I thought I’d give it another shot. I can confirm that I thought exactly the same on viewing number two as I did viewing number one. I was convinced I wasn’t in the right frame of mind when I first watched it, but I’ve now come to the conclusion that this movie has a terribly boring story. I really struggled to get involved in this film, I didn’t find myself captivated by either what was being said or happening on the screen, I tried to go with it both times but it didn’t ever grab me and pull me in. I did enjoy watching the performances. RDJ and Jude law worked well on screen together portraying these slightly wacky characters set within this meek depiction of good old fashioned London town.
The production design looked really cool, It was difficult to make out what are physical sets and what are CGI structures. In general the art direction was very nice indeed. The special effects while subtle in places stood to compliment the physical elements and the sometimes semi-enjoyable scenes of action. The end showdown between RDJ and Mark Strong’s Lord Blackwood on top of a “still being built” Tower Bridge stood out as particularly excellent composition of live action and CGI. The action this movie dishes out was ok, quite well designed, neatly cut together and watchable but you know, I could just go ahead, put on Red Cliff and watch some of the best choreographed action ever committed to film, which also has an unparalleled overall cinematic experience to go with it, it doesn’t end there though, there are literally thousands of films that have tons better action scenes than Sherlock Holmes.
There is a huge difference in the quality of action set pieces in a movie that you don’t really expect (or sometimes NEED) great action scenes in, and those where it is expected due to being more of a focal point (An action film). Sherlock could’ve had spent less time on its two major action sequences or even done away with them completely and beefed up on the suspense and intrigue and been a far superior movie.
This leads me to my greatest complaint with this flick, The investigation had no weight to it, all the clues that Holmes finds on his path were ill communicated to me in terms of what they meant, what questions I was meant to ask myself about what or why this or that might be? It was as if each clue was brushed over so briefly, they were unimportant because it really didn’t matter that the audience follow the mystery or not. I’d figured out pretty early on that Blackwood had rigged all this stuff, but I didn’t care how, the intrigue was none existent, for god sake this is a detective film with virtually no focus on the mystery. It soon dawned on me that this was probably something that plagued the creative team but ultimately became a lower priority with the real focus on making it accessible and shallow enough for anybody to watch and enjoy, brain engaged or not. This film was made for the masses! I may be part of the masses, but I think it's unfortunate that there are people out there, a lot of them I think, that don’t always pay full attention to the finer details, don’t always like to get inside a character, don’t offer themselves, their minds and emotions as vehicles on which the story and the characters ride. They simply go to the movies and don’t have to listen or pay full attention to anything, just let it play, its quirky wacky eccentric, action driven fun.
This is all of course very subjective, as reviews always are. I love a good no brainer, some of my favourite movies of all time could quite easily be put into the no brainer category, but a lot of allegedly simple films are exactly that! Simple! Straight ahead, inconsequential story lines, a good solid lead actor, some fun bad ass dialogue and a whole bunch of things that happen to that character on his or her journey. I think Sherlock is a simple film that lacked suspense and mystery and it’s pace was erratic, the characters were often colorful but never really that likable. In the form of the written word I assume this story does actually possess most of these missing qualities. Now translated into a huge budget studio film with a big-time actor in the lead, it became nothing more than an enjoyable film for some and a dull unmemorable experience for others. I would love to complain about Rachel McAdams’s poor ”British” accent right now, I really think they should’ve got a British actress in this role.
