Friday, December 25, 2009
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Friday, December 25, 2009
MOVIE REVIEW
Sherlock Holmes
Brains Battered By Brawn In 1890s Britain
Jude Law, Robert Downey Jr. and
Rachel McAdams in Guy Ritchie's "Sherlock Holmes".
Warners
By Omar P.L. Moore/PopcornReel.com
Friday, December 25, 2009
Guy Ritchie visits the late 19th Century in "Sherlock Holmes", which opened
today across the U.S. and Canada. The film exhibits Mr. Ritchie's
trademark flourishes but mostly not for the better as repetitive stylization
comes close to overwhelming the performances, including that of Robert Downey
Jr. in the title role. "Sherlock Holmes", which nonetheless is often
entertaining, suffers from a lack of solid villain and vision.
Lord Blackwell (Mark Strong), onscreen for a total of 30 minutes, is the
film's major villain, deemed responsible for several murders in London.
This lord is a slippery one; people tend to disappear under his watch.
Holmes is on Blackwell's case, determined to solve the seemingly unsolvable. Holmes'
trusty companion Dr. Watson (Jude Law) and he behave like spouses,
cantankerously ping-ponging and constantly barbing each other. Mr. Downey,
game for just about anything, gives the famous detective an extra physical
dimension as well as a platform to showcase the actor's well-regarded talents. Stella Adler (Rachel McAdams,
in a cameo), Holmes' rival and lover, returns
to London and proves elusive.
A rigid lawman (Eddie Marsan) has a contentious relationship with Detective
Holmes. A lot is going on in a sometimes unfocused film.
These scenarios and other assorted pickles are presented throughout almost two
hours and ten minutes of action and mystery. In between, explosions, visual
effects and frequent slow motion addle "Sherlock Holmes", which in Mr.
Ritchie's hands has a much-needed dynamism but whose visual tricks are best left
in one of his smaller films ("Snatch", "Lock, Stock And Two Smoking Barrels"). On a larger-scale canvas Mr.
Ritchie's style is exposed and exhausted after just one or two displays
of slow-motion depictions of Holmes' surmising and crime-fighting strategies.
Audiences will laugh along with some of the film' crisp, cheeky dialogue but
"Sherlock Holmes" needed to be about 20 minutes shorter than it is. One
wonders whether the duration mystery will be solved by Holmes himself or by Ritchie in a
follow up film to this one. Simply put, there's less spice and excitement
in this film than there should be.
With: Robert Maillet, Geraldine James, Kelly Reilly, William Houston, Hans
Matheson, James Fox, William Hope, Clive Russell, Oren Gurel and David Garrick.
"Sherlock Holmes" is rated PG-13 by the Motion Picture
Association Of America for intense sequences of violence and action, some
startling images and a scene of suggestive material. The film's running time is
two hours and eight minutes.
Read more movie reviews and stories from Omar
here.
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