A Tale of Two Sherlocks
5 January 2012 01:52 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
igenlodeI went to see the new film "Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows" -- despite having avoided its predecessor after being completely alienated by its advertising. (I had nothing against the idea of Holmes as swordsman, martial artist and manic Victorian eccentric -- all these arguably having basis in canon -- but the marketing managed to convince me that this film really wasn't aimed at me.) However a friend assured me that the film had actually been quite fun, and the trailer for this sequel made it look reasonably promising, while the Guardian's notoriously picky critic Peter Bradshaw gave it a 4/5 review. So I went. (Despite the fact that pictures at the local multiplex are now nearly twice as expensive for me as classics at the BFI.)
On the whole it was entertaining, but certainly didn't justify the ticket price, I'm afraid: it doesn't even make it into the make an appointment to switch on the TV category, although I wouldn't describe it as a 'switch off the TV' candidate: 6/10 for me.
Best part about the film: probably Stephen Fry, who is unexpectedly convincing as the massively indolent but brilliant older brother Mycroft (but really -- "Mikey" and "Shirley"?!) Worst part of the film: lengthy slow-motion gunplay in the forest (plus classic clichés ensuring that every single shot from a hero's weapon hits something, while a total hailstorm from their enemies can never strike home). Watching Holmes get tortured was, I'm afraid, a relief from this somewhat tedious convention (and the fact that the incident actually had after-effects on the hero's health also welcome: after a near-death experience he doesn't pop up again as good as new for an action finale...)
An effective Moriarty: we tend not to see enough of the mathematics professor in the supervillain versions of the screen. This one was convincingly cerebral (although I couldn't help mentally associating David Cameron and the Bullingdon Club with the repeated references to his personal friendship with "the Prime Minister"... I'm sorry, but Professor Moriarty is exactly the sort of policy wonk I can see as having behind-the-scenes influence at Downing Street!) I had trouble with Colonel Moran as a Cockney thug, though.
I don't think the dialogue was as witty as it thought it was (or at least I didn't find it as funny as I think was intended), but again, it was midly entertaining. Unlike most of the reviewers, I actually felt that the film picked up in its final scenes, after the big set-piece explosions of the gun-factory battle: the mental chess battle between Holmes and Moriarty both subtly emphasises the casual intellectual brilliance of both men and generates genuine tension in counterpoint with Watson's attempts to deduce the identity of the assassin indoors (in fact, in retrospect I think I liked this section because it was about the only section of the film in which actual detection took place and the challenges were mental rather than physical).
What I basically disliked about this picture was the bangs and crashes: the high percentage of meaty punches and automatic gunfire, the over-the-top action sequences accompanied by fake-looking CGI backgrounds (and if that was a real paddle-steamer or London roofscape, I apologise). It reminded me of the 2004 Hugh Jackson Victorian action-adventure vehicle Van Helsing, complete with trans-European cathedrals and gypsies, except that I enjoyed "Van Helsing" rather more, and cared more about the characters. As a period punch-'em-up, "Sherlock Holmes" fails for me -- more detection and less slow-motion action would have been more interesting. I also found Robert E. Downey's Holmes a bit too manic for credibility.
In terms of audience reaction I was amazed by the young man behind me who was evidently taken aback by Holmes' reappearance at the end: surely even a modern audience must know that Sherlock Holmes notoriously survived the Reichenbach Falls, in defiance of all probability and even of his author's intentions? Apparently not... Having said that, the 'death' sequence was actually well done, with a tangible sense of shock even when one knew (or assumed) precisely what was coming.
But when compared to the start of the BBC's new "Sherlock" season it delivered absolutely no contest. "A Scandal in Belgravia" was genuinely witty (it even contrives a credible modern-day set-up for Sherlock to be photographed in that famous deerstalker) and on occasion chilling (e.g. Sherlock taking revenge for an attack on Mrs Hudson -- a set-up in which he displays simultaneously more human and more cold-blooded actions than his custom) while displaying a formidable intelligence. My heart had sunk at the announcement that Moffatt/Gatiss planned to trot out Irene Adler (who, despite the Sherlockian mythology erected around her, actually appears in only one early story in the canon and is effectively forgotten ever after) to feature in their 21st-century 'reboot': oh no, it's going to be 'Holmes in love' again.
But in fact it isn't (though it's hard not to warm to a show that can come up with a line like 'brainy is the new sexy': my own version was always 'intelligence is attractive'). Love, as one would expect from a plausible version of Holmes, is revealed/confirmed as a weakness: as in the original, Irene Adler is a master manipulator (even if Benedict Cumberbatch's Holmes is a stunningly beautiful man -- and, one assumes, totally oblivious to this fact). And yet intellectual attraction is undoubtedly present.
The plot delivers an emotional kick, intellectual challenge (I did actually deduce the nature of that safe combination from the repetitive nature of the digits used, though I can't claim to have solved any of the other mysteries ahead of Watson), humour, excitement and some powerful moral questions. It also features nudity (for very different reasons) from both Sherlock and Irene, although I have to admit that when I read online that there had been a 'pre-watershed nudity scandal' it was Sherlock's sheet I immediately thought of, rather than Miss Adler's battledress!
Moriarty is reduced to a sinister background presence in this story, which is a great improvement (and much more effective) on the Big Reveal at the end of the last season: ranting, maniacal Moriarty is much less threatening than the Consulting Criminal providing professional tips to an entire underworld clientele. Watson was apparently absent from much of the episode... I can't say it felt like that to me. The relationship between him and Holmes is as entertaining as ever (and pretty much even-handed: a mix of schoolboy point-scoring and genuine mutual affection).
And as for Sherlock himself... well, this is a Holmes I can really identify with. (Although I'm pretty sure one is not supposed to have quite that reaction to the character.)
But it's just so incredibly rare to see characters onscreen being presented as the hero by virtue of intelligence, rather than their mystical ability to somersault out of danger or trade fisticuffs/bullets with anonymous thugs. While the concept of having a male lead who not only doesn't pursue women but arguably has no sexual activity at all... well, it makes a change from "The 40-Year-Old Virgin".
I didn't think this episode was quite so good as the opening one of the first series (the timeline felt a bit bitsy, and overall running time came across as too long as they kept piling more and more complications into the plot: I think it could have been streamlined to a shorter slot). However, it was better than any of the others so far, and an infinite improvement on the very disappointing Moriarty reveal with which we were left last time: an excellent omen for forthcoming episodes.
On the whole it was entertaining, but certainly didn't justify the ticket price, I'm afraid: it doesn't even make it into the make an appointment to switch on the TV category, although I wouldn't describe it as a 'switch off the TV' candidate: 6/10 for me.
Best part about the film: probably Stephen Fry, who is unexpectedly convincing as the massively indolent but brilliant older brother Mycroft (but really -- "Mikey" and "Shirley"?!) Worst part of the film: lengthy slow-motion gunplay in the forest (plus classic clichés ensuring that every single shot from a hero's weapon hits something, while a total hailstorm from their enemies can never strike home). Watching Holmes get tortured was, I'm afraid, a relief from this somewhat tedious convention (and the fact that the incident actually had after-effects on the hero's health also welcome: after a near-death experience he doesn't pop up again as good as new for an action finale...)
An effective Moriarty: we tend not to see enough of the mathematics professor in the supervillain versions of the screen. This one was convincingly cerebral (although I couldn't help mentally associating David Cameron and the Bullingdon Club with the repeated references to his personal friendship with "the Prime Minister"... I'm sorry, but Professor Moriarty is exactly the sort of policy wonk I can see as having behind-the-scenes influence at Downing Street!) I had trouble with Colonel Moran as a Cockney thug, though.
I don't think the dialogue was as witty as it thought it was (or at least I didn't find it as funny as I think was intended), but again, it was midly entertaining. Unlike most of the reviewers, I actually felt that the film picked up in its final scenes, after the big set-piece explosions of the gun-factory battle: the mental chess battle between Holmes and Moriarty both subtly emphasises the casual intellectual brilliance of both men and generates genuine tension in counterpoint with Watson's attempts to deduce the identity of the assassin indoors (in fact, in retrospect I think I liked this section because it was about the only section of the film in which actual detection took place and the challenges were mental rather than physical).
What I basically disliked about this picture was the bangs and crashes: the high percentage of meaty punches and automatic gunfire, the over-the-top action sequences accompanied by fake-looking CGI backgrounds (and if that was a real paddle-steamer or London roofscape, I apologise). It reminded me of the 2004 Hugh Jackson Victorian action-adventure vehicle Van Helsing, complete with trans-European cathedrals and gypsies, except that I enjoyed "Van Helsing" rather more, and cared more about the characters. As a period punch-'em-up, "Sherlock Holmes" fails for me -- more detection and less slow-motion action would have been more interesting. I also found Robert E. Downey's Holmes a bit too manic for credibility.
In terms of audience reaction I was amazed by the young man behind me who was evidently taken aback by Holmes' reappearance at the end: surely even a modern audience must know that Sherlock Holmes notoriously survived the Reichenbach Falls, in defiance of all probability and even of his author's intentions? Apparently not... Having said that, the 'death' sequence was actually well done, with a tangible sense of shock even when one knew (or assumed) precisely what was coming.
But when compared to the start of the BBC's new "Sherlock" season it delivered absolutely no contest. "A Scandal in Belgravia" was genuinely witty (it even contrives a credible modern-day set-up for Sherlock to be photographed in that famous deerstalker) and on occasion chilling (e.g. Sherlock taking revenge for an attack on Mrs Hudson -- a set-up in which he displays simultaneously more human and more cold-blooded actions than his custom) while displaying a formidable intelligence. My heart had sunk at the announcement that Moffatt/Gatiss planned to trot out Irene Adler (who, despite the Sherlockian mythology erected around her, actually appears in only one early story in the canon and is effectively forgotten ever after) to feature in their 21st-century 'reboot': oh no, it's going to be 'Holmes in love' again.
But in fact it isn't (though it's hard not to warm to a show that can come up with a line like 'brainy is the new sexy': my own version was always 'intelligence is attractive'). Love, as one would expect from a plausible version of Holmes, is revealed/confirmed as a weakness: as in the original, Irene Adler is a master manipulator (even if Benedict Cumberbatch's Holmes is a stunningly beautiful man -- and, one assumes, totally oblivious to this fact). And yet intellectual attraction is undoubtedly present.
The plot delivers an emotional kick, intellectual challenge (I did actually deduce the nature of that safe combination from the repetitive nature of the digits used, though I can't claim to have solved any of the other mysteries ahead of Watson), humour, excitement and some powerful moral questions. It also features nudity (for very different reasons) from both Sherlock and Irene, although I have to admit that when I read online that there had been a 'pre-watershed nudity scandal' it was Sherlock's sheet I immediately thought of, rather than Miss Adler's battledress!
Moriarty is reduced to a sinister background presence in this story, which is a great improvement (and much more effective) on the Big Reveal at the end of the last season: ranting, maniacal Moriarty is much less threatening than the Consulting Criminal providing professional tips to an entire underworld clientele. Watson was apparently absent from much of the episode... I can't say it felt like that to me. The relationship between him and Holmes is as entertaining as ever (and pretty much even-handed: a mix of schoolboy point-scoring and genuine mutual affection).
And as for Sherlock himself... well, this is a Holmes I can really identify with. (Although I'm pretty sure one is not supposed to have quite that reaction to the character.)
But it's just so incredibly rare to see characters onscreen being presented as the hero by virtue of intelligence, rather than their mystical ability to somersault out of danger or trade fisticuffs/bullets with anonymous thugs. While the concept of having a male lead who not only doesn't pursue women but arguably has no sexual activity at all... well, it makes a change from "The 40-Year-Old Virgin".
I didn't think this episode was quite so good as the opening one of the first series (the timeline felt a bit bitsy, and overall running time came across as too long as they kept piling more and more complications into the plot: I think it could have been streamlined to a shorter slot). However, it was better than any of the others so far, and an infinite improvement on the very disappointing Moriarty reveal with which we were left last time: an excellent omen for forthcoming episodes.
