Perhaps, as William Hazlitt wrote, "words are the only things that last forever." For in the early 21st century, what should excite the public other than a new movie about a character first written in 1887? Sherlock Holmes is back in the form of Iron Man Robert Downey Jr., who shares a certain personal bond with the famed detective of Baker Street. How will the hip, modern 21st century movie industry deal with Conan Doyle's genius? Pretty well, actually.
By viewing the trailers of "Sherlock Holmes" one would think that this is a most non-traditional Holmes more comic book hero than cerebral master of deduction. The movie, though, is true to what Holmes was really written to be 112 years ago - a brilliant, irreverent, eccentric, exasperating, tortured soul of an action hero, cursed with an unresting mind, in constant need of challenge. The interesting twist of this version of Holmes is not really Sherlock but the devoted friend Watson. The retired Army surgeon, late of India, is typically only along for the ride with a certain amount of constant confusion, until Holmes reduces the crime to simple terms at the end of the story. This Watson, though, is truly more adjunct than side-kick.
"Sherlock Holmes" of 2009 is the story of Watson and Holmes, just as the two are parting ways. Watson, being the more socially normal of the two, is about to be married. Holmes, typically logical and actually seriously self-centered, has not sympathy and little understanding of why a person would wish to divert his attention from constant excitement and challenge, to that of domesticity. Sherlock, having just finished another dashing deductive denouement, is depressed and restless. Such times always bring out the worst in Holmes. In the original stories, Holmes reduced to cocaine (the famous 7% solution). While this movie hints of this, we instead see a sort of madness, mental inactivity causes in our hero.
Fortunately, a profound villain Lord Blackwell (Mark Strong) provides the necessary rejuvenating challenge and the game is once again afoot! As an attractive distraction, we have Irene Adler (Rachel McAdams) as an old flame of Holmes. Watson (Jude Law) is drug into the action reluctantly, which is typical of the originals. Nicely, the object of Holmes’ activity is supposedly supernatural and it is the duty of Sherlock to discover that there is no magic. Such is the nature of Holmes, who knows too much to accept anything other than reality. For Holmes, there is always a logical answer. He would have made a wonderful Vulcan.
Director Guy Ritchie, and writers Johnson and Peckham, provide a superb London at the height of the Empire. Ritchie finds a way for us to see inside the mind of Holmes supercomputing brain, which is quite satisfying. For those hooked on explosions and daring stunts, the movie does not disappoint. For those who wish to figure it out, you will not likely deduce the ending without Holmes' help, which is quite well done in the last scenes.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle would approve and probably see the movie more than once. What a shame that an author with such vision did not live to see the 21st century version of Colliers Magazine do his character such justice.
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Perhaps, as William Hazlitt wrote, "words are the only things that last forever." For in the early 21st century, what should excite the public other than a new movie about a character first written in 1887? Sherlock Holmes is back in the form of Iron Man Robert Downey Jr., who shares a certain personal bond with the famed detective of Baker Street. How will the hip, modern 21st century movie industry deal with Conan Doyle's genius? Pretty well, actually.
By viewing the trailers of "Sherlock Holmes" one would think that this is a most non-traditional Holmes more comic book hero than cerebral master of deduction. The movie, though, is true to what Holmes was really written to be 112 years ago - a brilliant, irreverent, eccentric, exasperating, tortured soul of an action hero, cursed with an unresting mind, in constant need of challenge. The interesting twist of this version of Holmes is not really Sherlock but the devoted friend Watson. The retired Army surgeon, late of India, is typically only along for the ride with a certain amount of constant confusion, until Holmes reduces the crime to simple terms at the end of the story. This Watson, though, is truly more adjunct than side-kick.
"Sherlock Holmes" of 2009 is the story of Watson and Holmes, just as the two are parting ways. Watson, being the more socially normal of the two, is about to be married. Holmes, typically logical and actually seriously self-centered, has not sympathy and little understanding of why a person would wish to divert his attention from constant excitement and challenge, to that of domesticity. Sherlock, having just finished another dashing deductive denouement, is depressed and restless. Such times always bring out the worst in Holmes. In the original stories, Holmes reduced to cocaine (the famous 7% solution). While this movie hints of this, we instead see a sort of madness, mental inactivity causes in our hero.
Fortunately, a profound villain Lord Blackwell (Mark Strong) provides the necessary rejuvenating challenge and the game is once again afoot! As an attractive distraction, we have Irene Adler (Rachel McAdams) as an old flame of Holmes. Watson (Jude Law) is drug into the action reluctantly, which is typical of the originals. Nicely, the object of Holmes’ activity is supposedly supernatural and it is the duty of Sherlock to discover that there is no magic. Such is the nature of Holmes, who knows too much to accept anything other than reality. For Holmes, there is always a logical answer. He would have made a wonderful Vulcan.
Director Guy Ritchie, and writers Johnson and Peckham, provide a superb London at the height of the Empire. Ritchie finds a way for us to see inside the mind of Holmes supercomputing brain, which is quite satisfying. For those hooked on explosions and daring stunts, the movie does not disappoint. For those who wish to figure it out, you will not likely deduce the ending without Holmes' help, which is quite well done in the last scenes.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle would approve and probably see the movie more than once. What a shame that an author with such vision did not live to see the 21st century version of Colliers Magazine do his character such justice.
