[img]7|left|||no_popup[/img]Director Guy Ritchie’s vision of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s seminal detective is the sort of modern revisionism that both titillates the adrenaline glands and offends literary sensibilities. Much like J.J. Abrams’ re-invention of the original Star Trek series, Ritchie’s take on Sherlock Holmes indulges the fetish for action that has come to define almost every effort of late to adapt classic books and television series, an indulgence that often gleefully throws intellect under the box office bus. “There's quite a lot of intense action sequences in the stories, sometimes that hasn't been reflected in the movies,” Ritchie told the Telegraph. Point to Ritchie. Holmes does excel in physical combat, as evidenced (for example) by his tussle with Moriarty at Reichenbach Falls using the martial art of “baritsu,” in The Adventure of the Final Problem. Nevertheless, Doyle’s Holmes is a creature of mind for whom the physical is but a means to an end. It is the problem, the mystery, the seemingly insoluble knots of logic that drive the detective above all else. Ritchie’s emphasis on action shifts the essential character of the quality in a direction that doesn’t really lead anywhere. We can be thankful, however, that he and his screenwriters don’t discount Holmes’ devotion to observation and logic to nearly the same extent that Abrams and company ejected Star Trek’s high-concept ambition from their project, even if the bravura explanation of the villain’s apparently supernatural trickery comes across as an episode of Scooby Doo filtered through CSI.
There’s no denying the posh and dark-hued cinematography, the grimy London scenes, the dapper costumes, and the energy that makes Sherlock Holmes a brisk, kinetic thing. The film, whose look in the trailer reminded my wife of Stephen Norrington’s overly-maligned League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, is an elegant piece of quasi-historical simulation livened up by quick-cut action scenes, but also dimmed by the extent to which Ritchie’s vision is in thrall to films like the aforementioned League and the Hughes Brothers adaptation of another Alan Moore book, From Hell. Zimmer’s bombastic score, dominated by the sounds of a broken piano, is the film’s biggest drag. It would be a knockout if it didn’t come with the distinct impression that it belongs to another film, say, a Western. Perhaps it’s best to just buy the CD, enjoy the score on its own, and leave the cognitive dissonance behind in the movie theatre.
Of course, what we really care about is how well the lead actors handle the film’s eponymous character and his partner in crime-fighting. Alas, though rakish and likeable, Hollywood’s favourite comeback kid is no Jeremy Brett when it comes to portraying the great detective, and a consistent British accent proves elusive enough to take the edge off an otherwise passable yet disarming Holmes. Where Brett captured Holmes’ emotionally detached and relentless intellect with just the right dose of impish arrogance, humanity, and intensity, Robert Downey Jr. offers the usual kind of socially dysfunctional savant who nonetheless can charm Irene Adler and punch it like Bruce Lee.
More interesting by far is Jude Law’s Dr. Watson, perhaps the most persuasive update one could hope for on the Watsons played by Edward Hardwicke and David Burke opposite Brett in the classic Granada television series. An update, but let’s not call it an evolutionary step forward. Leaving Nigel Bruce’s buffoonish Watson far, far behind, Law, like Hardwicke and Burke, offers a strong, capable, intelligent Watson to serve as able sidekick and foil for Holmes’ formidable intelligence. Of course, Watson is further directed into chop-socky action and a strange “my brother’s keeper” relationship with Downey’s Holmes. That it works is entirely due to Law and Downey’s amicable rapport.
Yet for all that Sherlock Holmes is as surprisingly entertaining as it is re-hashed from countless other blockbusters, the whole enterprise begs the question as to why it was necessary to shoehorn a character already adapted, stretched and parodied so many times before into the standard Hollywood action flick. What would the film have been like with original characters?
Illustrating the adage that bigger is often just bigger, Sherlock Holmes throws in the buddy flick, a romantic interest in the form of an Irene Adler (McAdams) refashioned as a professional thief, and that old thriller stand-by, the plot for world domination by secret societies and yet another megalomaniac in a long line of screen megalomaniacs. Credit, then, to Mark Strong’s charismatic and robust screen presence as the film’s villain, whose name, Lord Blackwood, and theatrical style suggest an escapee from a gothic novel, and credit also to the lovely and charming Rachel McAdams. Both serve as functions rather than bona fide characters, but they do so with such good-natured grace that they make pretty distractions from the hackneyed, unimaginative plot. Not so big a distraction, though, as to take the spotlight away from Downey Jr. and Law.
And so, with the teasing shadow of Moriarty lurking about as a shameless and unsatisfying set-up for a sequel, we have a loose-canon update of Sherlock Holmes that is more entertaining than it deserves to be.
Entertainment: * (out of two)
Craft: * (out of two)
Sherlock Holmes. Directed by Guy Ritchie. Written by Michael Robert Johnson, Anthony Peckham and Simon Kinberg. Based on the stories by Arthur Conan Doyle. Starring Robert Downey Jr., Jude Law, Rachel McAdams and Kelly Reilly. 128 minutes. Rated PG-13 (for intense sequences of violence and action, some startling images and a scene of suggestive material).
Frédérik invites you to visit his blog, www.inkandashes.net.
