Sherlock Holmes is a movie well cast, well acted, well designed, well directed, that somehow, at the end of the day, left me feeling underwhelmed. (And left the person in front of me fallen asleep in her chair.) It’s like this gorgeous house, decorated to hopes of perfection, with just not terribly sound architectural plans. In movie-speak, the plans of course being the storyline.
The plot, in brief. Our movie opens in media res with Holmes (Robert Downey Jr) and Watson (Jude Law) Spiderman-ing their way through the creepy interiors of Victorian London. Before we know what’s hit us, or what’s going on, Holmes busts into a room where a cloaked man is performing a Satanic ritual on a laid out woman. He apprehends the man (not surprisingly before the inept Scotland Yard), and newspaper titles scream at us that finally, LORD BLACKWOOD, has been captured. Officials hang Blackwood, Watson himself declares the dark lord dead, but then reports come out that Blackwood is walking the streets.
For the next 100 minutes, the following happens:
- Bodies stack up.
- Irene Adler (Rachel McAdams), an old flame (and criminal mastermind) of Holmes shows up on the scene for mixed, but rather charming, purposes.
- Watson periodically loses interest Holmes and the dead bodies, with an impending marriage on the line. Holmes is rather jealous.
- Sherlock Holmes stares into space and makes quizzical faces, while mentally putting together the puzzles in his head. Puzzles the audience isn’t privy to seeing until the last 5 minutes of the movie show us all backflash, with voiceover narration, of every detail Holmes was silently clocking.
In the last 25 minutes of the movie, we figure out what all this means when Lord Blackwood rather dramatically announces, “AT NOON TOMORROW, LIFE AS WE KNOW IT SHALL COME TO AN END.”
Ohhh. Now there’s a plot conflict I would have liked to know about in Act I.
For all the utterly rakish charm Robert Downey Jr. brings Sherlock Holmes, the lack of urgency in this story felt a great disservice. Director Guy Ritchie also delivers, making each fight scene feel like a believable scrap – the element he so succeeded in when making Snatch.
The most entertaining and impressive sequences of Sherlock Holmes is when the movie brings a marriage to these two elements: the internal complexities of Holmes, with the ability to stage a fight sequence. At at least two points in the movie, Ritchie brings us to slow-mo, and allows Holmes to telegraph to us each move he plans to execute, as he explains what the damaging effect will be to the victim.
We see this side of Holmes, the steel trap mind, again, when he decides to analyze Watson’s fiancee. The whole thing feels very clever, and fun, and it’s precisely what I wish the audience had been privy to more: the ability to appreciate and detect along with Sherlock Holmes. I have no idea why they felt the point and conflict of the movie had to be so hidden and rushed, and internal.
Our movie ends with the promise of a sequel, to fill in the same story. I look forward to this sequel more than I plan on ever watching Sherlock Holmes again.
Tags: Sherlock Holmes
