Sherlock Holmes

The world's best known detective is rebooted as an ass kicking adventurer more in the attitudinal vein of Patrick Jane than Conan-Doyle.


Synopsis:
A genius detective, bored with the 1 dimensional crimes he is continually asked to solve, is rejuvenated when an adversary, worthy of his intellectual prowess, apparently raises from the dead to wreak panic on London.


Review:
So, here we have another re-imagination, or reboot as they're so commonly called, of a beloved fictional character. I very loosely wonder if this has more to do with Hollywood's lack of new ideas, or a real hunger to see Sherlock Holmes' deductive prowess brought into the 21st century?


Alice, of recent "Alice in Wonderland" reboot, very clearly needed to slay a dragon, with a magical sword, in order to be hip to modern audiences. So, what would our venerable Holmes have to do to appeal to the Mountain Dew swilling masses? Well, be a master martial artist of course... who uses his deductive skills to beat an opponent soundly in his head, in slow motion, before he does exactly the same in real life, but much faster. Not only can he spot the odd red mud on the shoe that gives the killer away, but he can clearly derive how a fight will end simply by deducing the future! Wow, neat! Now, I know Holmes was mentioned to be a good fighter in the literature, but I don't think he was supposed to be Jet Li.


OK, so the first 10-15 minutes of the film are spent showing us how kick-ass Karate Holmes is. He beats the crap out of several guys... in his head, and in real life. So, we actually get to see him beat the crap out of several guys times 2 if you think about it... yeah. Oh yeah, we also see that he's smart and friends with another smart guy named Watson. He kicks butt too, but he's a little more dandy about it and all. As you can see, I'm devolving along with the film. So, there's this really scary guy who worships the devil, or something, and Holmes and Watson stop him from doing something that looks like the devil would really dig.


It's old school London so, instead of hanging the guy for attempted murder, they get him for black magic. All around this time it's clear that Karate Holmes is bored with all of the jilted wive, and petty thievery, boring crimes that Scotland Yard wants him to solve, so he shuts himself in his half of the flat, that he shares with Watson, and pretends to be a vampire. Whatever will get him to go outside? Well, the scary black magic guy asks to see Karate Holmes as his last request and, for some insane reason, tweaks our intrepid detective just enough so that he's, kind of, annoyed. And, whatever you do, you don't want to annoy Karate Holmes. Now, when our bad guy apparently slips the shackles of death, an annoyed Holmes has a bug up his butt about catching this guy. Black magic guy was clearly a dope for blabbing about all of the crazy crap he was going to do, but I guess we wouldn't have a movie if he wasn't... he would have just ruled the world and we'd all be members of some sphinx cult. If only he'd kept his mouth shut!


And, we're off and running with enough ammo for Holmes and Watson to run around for another 70 minutes and beat guys up, make clever deductions, get shot at, get blown up, have snappy exchanges with a Jersey Girl, and pretend to be Super Mario Brothers in a meat packing plant. I never knew Victorian era London was so exciting!


Seriously, the movie has a few funny moments here and there. The action is pretty mediocre. The characters are occasionally likable. But the story, oh the story... Detective stories work when all of the evidence is there for you to see but you're still shocked at the end, because you weren't observant enough to see all the pieces. "The Usual Suspects," or "The 6th Sense," come to mind as good recent examples. You see all of the pieces in Sherlock Holmes, and you pretty much know what's going on, and where it's going so, when they fill in the blanks at the end, there's really not much of a surprise. You hear a bunch of chemistry jargon that fills in the blanks that were, at this point, pretty small blanks, and you just wonder when Karate Holmes is going to beat another guy up.


The trademark, and foundation of what Conan Doyle inspired writers and readers to look for in a mystery, was almost wholly missing from this film. There was no "whodunit" and what we were left with was a pretty weak "howdunit" peppered throughout a slightly obscure, fast cut, action blockbuster. Hollywood really is nuts.


Guy Ritchie has still only made 1 good film (Lock Stock and 2 Smoking Barrels) and a lesser remake of that same film (Snatch,) but "Sherlock Holmes" goes on the heap with the rest of the sub so-so stuff he's becoming better known for. Downey wasn't great in this one, and Jude Law, for whatever reason, seemed a bit more likable as Watson. But, that's 2 movies in a row where I was thinking more about what I was going to be doing when the movie was over than getting lost in the world the filmmakers laid out before us, and 2 more examples of how it may be better for these properties to be left alone if they're not going to be given any justice.