 |
| Robert Downey Jr. is gelled up and stares out as a man who knows he is a super-star on this well-made poster for Guy Ritchie's Sherlock Holmes |
Holmes, the highly gifted London detective with the heightened senses, is reluctantly in the process of losing his companion Dr. Watson to a female, all the while he fights the feared Lord Blackwood.
Sherlock Holmes is written by Michael Robert Johnson (Pompeii (2014)), Anthony Peckham (Silo 3 Jane (1995)) and Simon Kinberg (Jumper (2008)), based on a story by Johnson and Lionel Wigram (The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (2015)), in turn based on the legendary character created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (the first story with Holmes was printed in 1887). The film is directed by Guy Ritchie (Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (1998)).
If you favor Ritchie's brand of postmodernist, hot-air-bloated, Quentin Tarantino-cramming style, you'll devour Sherlock Holmes raw. I don't, and I mostly see here a plot that has the refinement and depth of a weak children's movie, which gets blown up and served to fully grown adults.
Robert Downey Jr. (Lucky You (2007)) and Jude Law's (Black Sea (2014)) banter here, deliberately fashioned to bear the likeness of two old lovers quarrelling, can be diverting, - but regrettably the tension remains coy subtext. Rachel McAdams (Wedding Crashers (2005)) is pretty but has little to do in the film.
Holmes is now a champion boxer, and although his fistfights look cool, it is still incredible that Downey Jr. should damage one of literature's most alluring figures like this.
The sound design and mix are excellent, but Sherlock Holmes is too long and is also marred by an enormous faith in CGI, which give large parts of the film an unreal, ghastly look.
Related post:
2009 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED IV]
2009 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]
Cost: 90 mil. $
Box office: 524 mil. $
= Huge hit (returned 5.82 times its cost)
[Sherlock Holmes premiered 14 December (London, UK) and runs 129 minutes. Shooting took place in England, including London, and in New York from October 2008 - January 2009. The film opened #2, behind Avatar, to a 62.3 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it spent another 3 weeks in the Top 5 (#2-#2-#5) and grossed 209 mil. $ (39.9 % of the total gross). The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were the UK with 39.7 mil. $ (7.6 %) and Italy with 26.9 mil. $ (5.1 %). The film was nominated for 2 Oscars: Best Score (Hans Zimmer (The Road of Love (2017))), lost to Michael Giacchino for Up, and Art Direction, lost to Avatar. It won a Golden Globe and was nominated for a Grammy, among other honors. Roger Ebert gave it a 3/4 star review, translating to 2 notches higher than this one. The film has additionally made in excess of 44.9 mil. $ on the North-American home video market. Ritchie, Downey Jr., Law and McAdams returned with sequel Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows (2011), with similar success, and Downey and Law are set to return with a fresh director for a 3rd film, set to release in 2021. Ritchie made short Un Rendez-vous (2010) before the Holmes sequel. Downey Jr. returned first in Iron Man 2 (2010); Law in Arena (2010, TV-series documentary) and theatrically in Repo Men (2010); McAdams in Morning Glory (2010), and Mark Strong (Revolver (2005)) in Kick-Ass (2010). Sherlock Holmes is fresh at 69 % with a 6.22/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]
What do you think of Sherlock Holmes?
No comments:
Post a Comment