Spoiler alert: I will be talking about plot in this review, so don’t read it if you haven’t seen the movie, or unless you don’t plan on seeing it anyway!
Every year on Christmas Eve I enjoy attending a worship service at my church, and then my whole extended family (uncles, aunts, cousins, and kids) gets together for a big family dinner with a white elephant gift exchange. However, this always leaves Christmas Day wide open. I often end up seeing a movie, since nothing else is open anyway. This year my movie of choice was Sherlock Holmes, directed by Guy Ritchie, which actually opened today on Christmas.
I am a huge Sherlock Holmes fan, having read every Holmes story ever written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (four novels and 58 short stories). I did my Master of Theology degree at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland where Doyle was a med school student in the late 19th century (Edinburgh’s med school is considered the best in the UK). It was at the University that he was impressed by one of his medical professors who used his powers of observation to deduce things about the corpses (cause of death, diagnosis of disease, personal habits, etc.). This inspired Doyle to create the character of Holmes, based upon his professor.
So I went to watch this movie today full of anticipation. Would Guy Ritchie alter the character significantly, or would he stay true to Arthur Conan Doyle’s vision? A lot of our popular notions of Sherlock Holmes today actually come not from the books but from the various TV series that have appeared in the last century. For example, in the books, Holmes never wore a deerstalker cap nor did he ever say “Elementary, my dear Watson” (those are from the TV shows). This is similar to the popular idea of “Beam me up Scotty” which, incidentally, never was uttered in any Star Trek episode!
Here is my review of the movie:
First, the characterizations.
I thought Jude Law made a pretty decent Dr. Watson. He played the part of the straight, uptight sidekick fairly true to form. He had good chemistry and camaraderie with Holmes at the appropriate moments, though he was a little less deferential in the movie than he was in the books. I wish Ritchie had brought out Watson’s journaling (Doyle always made it seem as if we were reading Watson’s accounts, with only four exceptions) and his amazement at Holmes’ deductive abilities (the reader is meant to sympathize with Watson; similarly, I wished that Inspector Lestrade would have been more awed by Holmes as he was constantly being one-upped in the books). I felt like this Watson was constantly rebuking Holmes which was not entirely in character.
Rachel McAdams played Holmes’ love interest, Irene Adler. This was probably the furthest deviation from an actual character in the stories. It’s true that Adler outsmarted Holmes in one of the stories (“A Scandal in Bohemia”) and Holmes was “impressed” with her, but to go so far as to explicate a love affair between them? I think the romantic tension should have been better left for the audience to presume; that would have provided more intrigue. As for McAdams herself, I expected her to be older and more sophisticated to play Irene Adler (instead, I kept thinking about Mean Girls and The Notebook)!
Robert Downey Jr. is a master actor, and his Holmes was really good—but not quite accurate. He was actually far too likeable, physical, and scatterbrained in the movie. The actual Holmes was tall and thin, a cold calculating machine with very little emotion, and always completely in control of every situation. Downey’s Holmes did provide the violin playing from the books, but lacked the cocaine use (keep in mind, in the late 19th century, the deleterious effects of cocaine were not widely known, so it did not have the stigma it does today). Holmes, when not working on a case, would find his brain getting bored, so he would stimulate it with cocaine otherwise he would grow restless. Also, Holmes was a master fencer in the books, not just a hand-to-hand combat guy like he was in the movie, except in the case of defeating Professor Moriarty at Reichenbach Falls (in “The Final Problem”) when Holmes himself also “died.” (btw, I love the fact that a professor is Holmes’ arch-nemesis. Makes me feel powerful… mwahahaha…)
Second, the visuals.
The visuals were spot-on. It really did feel like Victorian London, with the costumes (no deerstalker cap!), streets, buildings, and Thames River all perfectly looking the part.
However, there was one scene where Irene Adler ran quickly from Westminster (the houses of Parliament) to the under-construction Tower Bridge, but that would have been impossible in such a short time given the geography of the city! The Tower Bridge is almost halfway across London in real life.
Third, the story.
I felt that the story was a cross between Dan Brown’s Angels & Demons, James Bond’s Casino Royale, Batman, The Saint, Mission Impossible, V for Vendetta, and Scooby-Doo.
Hmm, let’s see: three people have been murdered around the city, corresponding to three different symbols, and they have to stop the fourth death before it’s too late? That’s Dan Brown all the way! Except in Sherlock Holmes, it’s the four components of the Sphinx (man, lion, ox, eagle) instead of the four elements (earth, fire, air, water) as in Angels & Demons. Incidentally, those four animals are actually from Ezekiel 1:10-14 and Revelation 4:6-8, and Europeans have long interpreted them in Christian art as the four Gospels—Matthew is the man, Mark is the lion, Luke is the ox, and John is the eagle. (Btw, it really bugged me when Holmes said “Revelations” 1:18 instead of “Revelation”! That is one of my pet peeves, especially when Christians add that nonexistent “s” at the end of the book title. Holmes, intelligent character that he is supposed to be, ought to know better! Or at least the screenwriters should have had their Scripture reference checked.) You can read my review of Angels & Demons here.
The story was also similar to Casino Royale because of the Holmes-Adler relationship which resembled the Daniel Craig – Eva Green relationship in the movie adaptation of Ian Fleming’s first Bond novel. Bond meets a woman (Vesper Lynd) who is actually his intellectual match, he falls for her, she betrays him, but she actually ends up falling for him too—only difference is, in Sherlock Holmes, Irene Adler does not die so I guess Holmes does not have to become a womanizing angst-ridden vigilante as James Bond does due to Vesper Lynd’s death!
Downey’s Holmes seemed to have a lot of gadgets and tools, so I guess that is similar to James Bond but I was also thinking Batman’s utility belt. Or perhaps even MacGyver.
He also appears to be a master of disguise. It seemed very similar to Val Kilmer’s The Saint or Tom Cruise’s Mission Impossible movies.
And sabotaging Parliament? Can you say Guy Fawkes in V for Vendetta? “Remember, remember, the fifth of November…”
I wasn’t sure what to make of the huge emphasis on the occult in the movie, but the unmasking of the supernatural was a theme in some of the Holmes stories (especially “The Hound of the Baskervilles”). However, the end sequence when Holmes was telling Blackwood how he figured out all his tricks just seemed too much like a Scooby-Doo ending. I almost expected Blackwood to snarl, “If it wasn’t for you kids, I would’ve gotten away with it!” And then the dog to say, “Ruh-roh, Shaggy!”
I wish there was more of Professor Moriarty in the movie, but I guess it’s setting itself up for a sequel, similar to how Cobra Commander actually doesn’t make his grand entrance until the end of the movie G.I. Joe, or how the Joker doesn’t appear in Batman Begins but rather The Dark Knight. I guess Part 2 ups the ante by giving us not just Blackwood, Destro, and Scarecrow, but Moriarty, Cobra Commander, and the Joker!
Conclusion:
Enjoyable flick. Not entirely accurate to the books, but certainly creative, and it’s hard not to like Robert Downey Jr. I appreciated his interpretation of Holmes, though it’s not for purists.
If you’re ever in London, be sure to visit 221B Baker St. which is the Sherlock Holmes museum, full of memorabilia about the fictional detective.
Also, if you’re in Edinburgh, go to the intersection of Leith St. and Queen St. where you can see a statue of Holmes himself, and right around the corner is the Conan Doyle pub with good displays and artifacts from the author and his literary creation.
And if you’ve finished reading Sherlock Holmes and are hungry for more, I recommend Colin Dexter’s Inspector Morse, Oxford’s very own detective. The stories are set in and around the university city and are great to read as well.