Some helpful articles

I really had no interest in reading other reviews before I wrote and rewrote my own, so as not to color my own thoughts with others', and thus develop my voice better. Below I've posted links and excerpts to two other reviews of the film. One is Tim Robey's review from the Telegraph, which I was particularly interested in because of the English perspective on this film interpretation of a classic piece of English Literature. The other review is Kenneth Turan's from the LA Times. I'm envious of both writers' ability to write with larger word limits, but I also found through reading their pieces that mentioning other versions of films, and name dropping actors and directors who previously tackled a version of the film is a very common practice that doesn't so much add context as it does give the reader a history lesson that he or she can then use in watching or evaluating the film. Turan's article is much more mixed than Robey's, which is more to the 'rave' side of the review continuum, though both are still highly critical. The historical knowledge of film and literature that the two writers employ impressively solidifies their credibility though they probably didn't need it, as they are the film critics for two very large newspapers. As a writer who doesn't have a contract that gives me a fair amount of automatic credibility like these men, I hope in the future to incorporate more references to other films and director/actor histories into my articles so that I can help establish my credibility where it is already so lacking.

And now, the articles:

'Sherlock Holmes'

Guy Ritchie turns the master sleuth into an action hero, with mixed results.

By Kenneth Turan FILM CRITIC

There's a mystery at the heart of "Sherlock Holmes," and it's not the one the great master of detection has been called on to solve. It's how a film that has so many good things going for it has turned out to be solid but not spectacular.

Solid, of course, is more than many studio films can muster these days, but we expect better when we're dealing with the world's greatest consulting detective, someone who has been played by more than 70 actors in something like 200 films, good enough for inclusion in the Guinness Book of World Records.

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It's helpful to add in the brisk style of British filmmaker Ritchie, best-remembered for two of his earlier films, "Snatch" and "Lock, Stock & Two Smoking Barrels." A director with onscreen energy to burn, Ritchie initially has fun with this story of Holmes versus master criminal Lord Blackwood, a man who dabbles in the black arts, says gnomic things like "death is only the beginning" and threatens to end civilization as we know it.

On the other hand, though, all this "new Holmes" talk is something of a smoke screen. What is problematic about the film is not so much the change in character as the change in the nature of the classic Sherlock Holmes vehicle. This Hollywoodized epic has attempted to do too much, has had to serve too many masters. That has, in turn, given the picture an air of trying too hard, which is the one thing Sherlock Holmes should never have to do.

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The plot itself is promising, starting withLord Blackwood (an excellent Mark Strong) being stopped by Holmes, Watson and Inspector Lestrade (Eddie Marsan) just before he commits a dastardly black-magic deed. Blackwood's apparent ability to cheat death terrifies the metropolis ("London in Terror" headlines obligingly shout), and only Holmes has a chance of figuring out just which game is afoot.

Adding yet another uncertain element to the mix is the appearance of the mysterious Irene Adler, celebrated among Sherlockians as the only woman to fascinate the great detective as well as the only adversary to ever best him. Unfortunately, the usually excellent and very contemporary Rachel McAdams is simply miscast here in a part that cries out for the kind of deeper Victorian soulfulness that someone like Rachel Weisz can project.

More than any one big thing, it is the accumulation of these kinds of small misadventures that trip up "Sherlock Holmes." They so cramp its style that instead of appreciating the good things we've been given, we end up wishing for the film that might have been. It's a mug's game, but currently it's the only one in town.

Sherlock Holmes, review

Guy Ritchie spins a flashy, thunderous, all-action blockbuster around the Victorian super-sleuth and his sidekick.

By Tim Robey

There’s an eccentric touch in the end credits for Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes. They’re beautifully done, freeze-framing all the preceding mayhem into elegant graphic stills to recall Sidney Paget’s original magazine illustrations. Then up pops the page for the movie’s literary source – credited to “the late Sir Arthur Conan Doyle”. How late can you get? Watching this pumped-up Victorian buddy movie, Doyle might have wondered what mad century he’d stepped into.

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Thanks to Downey, and thanks in surprising part to Ritchie, it’s a totally enjoyable spin on the character – he’s a slovenly headcase who can’t look after himself, not an opium addict but neurotic, perma-bantering student of crime and combat. Jude Law’s pally Watson – a definite plus – is essentially Danny Glover in Lethal Weapon, the stolidly reliable, long-suffering foil to his friend’s quicksilver brilliance. Together, they confront the case of an Aleister Crowley-ish serial killer called Lord Blackwood (Mark Strong, with a wonky front tooth), who is caught, sent to the gallows, pronounced dead, and then does a dastardly Lazarus routine.

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As usual, Ritchie overdoes the flash; there’s hardly a scene he doesn’t want to edit back to front, and the opening sequence of Blackwood’s capture, which he intends to feel like the overblown finale of a previous case, doesn’t work at all. Still, it’s fun flash, on the whole: powered by Hans Zimmer’s antic score, the movie has a restless, try-it-on quality that keeps you on your toes.

Rachel McAdams, as American femme fatale Irene Adler, feels like very pretty window-dressing, because the script never decides what to do with her beyond setting up the shadowy, sequel-hinting presence of an accomplice called Moriarty. Too often she and Law are competing for scenes. We want more Law! But that’s a fairly sure sign this droll blockbuster has got you on its side.