Wednesday 6 January 2010

Sherlock Holmes

In Diamonds Are Forever, James Bond smuggles diamonds into the US inside the body of a deceased smuggler by shoving them up the corpse's arse. When Felix Leiter asks Bond where the gems are, he replies: “Alimentary, my dear Dr. Leiter”, thereby simultaneously paraphrasing Sherlock Holmes and hammering another nail into the coffin of early Bondian wit.


The standard of this gag is interesting, because by an extraordinary coincidence it is exactly the same standard as Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes film, and also relates directly to the location from whence Mr Ritchie produced his film, and to where The Incredible Suit recommends he forcibly return it at the soonest convenient occasion.

Now I haven’t read every Sherlock Holmes story, but I have read some, and I don’t recall quite as many explosions, tedious chases, pointless set-pieces and weak, badly-told stories as there are in this film. I’m also reasonably sure that Holmes wasn’t American, although I suppose the States could just be getting us back for casting a Welshman as Batman.


Seriously though, if you’re going to make a film called Sherlock Holmes that only vaguely resembles the source material in that the characters have the same names and it’s set in Victorian London, why not just rename the people and call it something else? Especially if you’ve taken one character - Dr Watson - and altered his status from perpetually flummoxed companion to action-hero sidekick who says and does nothing of any use or interest, and even manages to do that badly thanks to the ‘skills’ of Jude Law.

And another thing, right, let’s get some London geography sorted out here: even the most athletic type would have a job legging it through a sewer from the Houses of Parliament to Tower Bridge (a distance of about three miles) in less than 30 seconds. If an American had directed this film it would be almost forgivable, but when it’s a self-proclaimed London-phile it’s surely a capital offence punishable by ten years of uninterrupted Madonna records at high volume?

Anyway, Hans Zimmer's music is very good, although I could have done without all those incongruous Irish songs thank you very much. Oh and if you remember what I said in this post, I can tell you that it doesn’t happen. Shame really.



PS Dear Cineworld Enfield, if you could see your way clear to doing a proper job of masking your 2.35:1 screen when projecting a 1.85:1 image in future so the edges don’t just fizzle out into grey that would be lovely. It is your job after all.

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5 comments :

  1. Mr Suit,

    PMT? Get out bed the wrong side? And layoff the anti-Taffy jibes - Wikipedia says he's English, so that's fine by me. You could have guessed that by his moods actually. Perhaps you are Christian Bale? Anyway, he is a good batman, unlike some of the lesser yanks. mr Clooney did look rather fine in rubber, by I digress....

    I'm not entirely surprised by your review of Sherlock. You know when you see a trailer, and read about the actors and hear American accents and you get a gut feeling it's going to be a stinker, or at least a film where you need a lobotomy to enjoy? I felt this way about it, but I'd hoped it was going to surprise me with actually being secretly good. Bum.

    Ms So So Jeans

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  2. From the Freak-pit :-

    "Nearly hundreds of actors have played Sherlock Holmes and his sidekick Dr. Watson, and it may seem rash to call Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law the best Holmes-and-Watson-duo so far."


    "As a film on its own merits, "Sherlock Holmes" is almost perfect. "

    And the most tosserly statement :-

    "Even when Sherlock Holmes feels a little bit more like James Bond, he doesn't feel any less like Sherlock Holmes."

    I think this review has done more to put me off this film than you Mr Suit.

    Ms So So Jeans

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  3. No anti-Welsh stuff here Ms J, why some of my best friends are Welsh. At least I think they are because they spit on me whenever they talk. Maybe they're just spitting on me.

    People are funny, aren't they. Fancy just babbling your opinions on the internet like that for anyone to ridicule. Idiot holes!

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  4. It started for Guy when Madonna suddenly became English.

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  5. Ha ha! I had the exact same thought about the sewer run in the cinema! When I saw this at the cinema I left feeling disappointed - evidently my expectations had been too high. sigh. On re-watch on DVD it was pleasantly diverting, and entertaining if only by virtue of its balls-out rediculousness. Also, it was soooo predictable and so tragic that Guy Richie decided mystery = Dan Brown stories. Sherlock is probably best left to Mr Cumberbatch and British TV, no?

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