The Philippine Online Chronicles

The key to enjoying Guy Ritchie's re-imagining of Sherlock Holmes is to forget all that you know, or think that you know, about the Great Detective. The good news is that for those who can accomplish this, there is much that is enjoyable in the film. The bad news is that, even if all you have is a passing familiarity with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's most enduring creation, it can be hard to reconcile what Ritchie has produced with the movie one would expect to bear the name "Sherlock Holmes." Those who consider themselves die-hard purists, Sherlockians or Holmesians, would do well to avoid the film entirely, unless they are able to view the universe of the stories and that of the Ritchie movie as being entirely separate, and appreciate each apart from the other… for rest assured, this is not their Sherlock Holmes.

"What one man can invent another can discover…"

This is not to say Ritchie's Holmes does not have appeal--although how much of that appeal is from the character, and how much from the actor, is unclear. When Robert Downey Jr. stepped into the jet-powered boots of Iron Man, the actor disappeared, and all we saw was Tony Stark, playboy billionaire inventor. When he dons the Victorian-era clothing and pipe of the Great Detective though, we see… well, Robert Downey as a roguish, highly intelligent, Victorian detective, one given to taunting his enemies, playing the violin and brawling for sport--Holmes, but visibly different. (Downey's performance has netted him a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actor in a Comedy/Musical... yes, the categorization confuses me as well.) The deductive abilities are, thankfully, very much in evidence. Downey's Holmes has a humor and playfulness that largely seems absent (or at least different) from that of the Holmes of the texts. The film's Holmes also has a penchant for getting under the skin of his long suffering companion, Dr. John Watson, played by Jude Law (sometimes concocting elaborate and rather petulant schemes to do so, though hardly challenged, as we'll get into later) and the film does a good job in showing how… complicated and layered Holmes' persona is, but Downey's character also.

Dr. Watson perhaps benefits the most from the reimagination of Conan Doyle's characters. Law's Watson is more dynamic than the image of Watson in the minds of those only acquainted in passing with the prose adventures of the Great Detective. The Sherlock Holmes stories, while written by Doyle, are presented as first person "factual" accounts penned by Watson, and while Watson can and does have his moments, the focus is rather firmly on the Detective and not the Doctor. Not so in Ritchie's film, where the relationship between Holmes and Watson is closer to that of equals. There are many action sequences in the film, and while Homes is certainly a more than adequate fighter, Watson provides indispensable back-up (handling the "potatoes" while Holmes takes on the "meat"). While there is tension between the partners in the film, none of it is the result of Holmes patronizing Watson or speaking to him as if he were a child.

Aside from the equalization of the Holmes-Watson dynamic, and the charm of the lead characters (and the chemistry they have with each other on-screen--although different viewers may see different types of chemistry at play), there are other aspects that make Sherlock Holmes an enjoyable film: the calculated manner by which Holmes plans the dispatching of his foes, which plays out in detail-rich slow motion (although I could do without the repetition inherent in seeing the scene once in Holmes mind, and then an identical scene acted out in reality), the seeding of plot elements for a sequel that raises the stakes, and the way the film portrays Victorian London: I don't know enough about the nation or the period to say anything as to the accuracy of the representation, but the setting has a coherence and an other-ness (at least for this Filipino viewer) that makes it a well-realized alternate world. That the film was well-funded is evident in the sets and camera work, and if Ritchie wanted to prove he could make an entertaining, Hollywood-style romp starring a tweaked version of the Holmes-Watson duo, then he succeeded.

The infusion of "Hollywood-style", however, is also the reason why, on another level, the film fails.

"We must look for consistency. Where there is a want of it we must suspect deception."

While I have no quarrel with the inclusion of so many action scenes in the film, it is the quality and type of the action scenes in the movie that leave me cold. With the exception of the aforementioned slow-motion moments, the action scenes are often ill-choreographed and uninspired, dipping too often into the realm of slapstick pratfalls to convey any sense of threat, trigger any form of excitement.

(Warning: Spoiler Alert)

Moreover, some of the action scenes are both excessive and irrelevant, the fight at the docks being the worst example of both aspects; the sole aim and purpose of the fight seems to be to have an excuse to have a money-shot scene where a boat hurtles towards Sherlock Holmes. The fight could easily have ended in the prior scene, and Holmes had no real reason to chase down the French brute (think Jaws from the Bond films) since there was at least one other incapacitated subject that he could have interrogated for information. The reckless pursuit made Holmes seem… unintelligent, and whatever version of Holmes you are portraying, that simply cannot stand.

It is not the docks scene that is most guilty of disrespecting the intelligence of Holmes however--that dubious distinction goes to, sadly, the central revelatory scene where Holmes "puts all the pieces together" so to speak. In the attempt of the movie to keep from explicitly stating whether or not the villain is employing actual "magic", the film requires Holmes--Holmes the man of logic, Holmes the diehard skeptic--to undergo a "ritual" in order to understand the plans of the villain… plans which he could have simply deduced given the evidence he had on hand. In this instance, the excuse that the film Holmes is a "re-imagined" version can not suffice, since even in the film Holmes is a skeptic, and by this portion of the film he has already deduced the mechanisms of the villains earlier "magic" (even if he has not yet revealed this to the viewer). It is hard to see this scene as anything but the subordination of character consistency in the name of the plot, or concealing plot information from the viewer, a mark of bad storytelling whether the story be told on paper or in film. However slick the presentation, however good it may be as that sort of movie, I couldn't help shaking the feeling--even as I enjoyed the bells and whistles--that this just wasn't the type of movie that should star Sherlock Holmes.

It would be, to an extent, understandable if the plot were in some way compelling, if the important questions were not already answered from the onset, or telegraphed a good way off. Yet perhaps the greatest tragedy of the film (aside from how Adler is relegated to the role of eye candy/love interest) is that it somehow takes Sherlock Holmes--the Great Detective, who starred in stories that defined (maybe even created) the classical detective story--and places him in a movie where there is no element of mystery. I only know of Holmes through secondary material (not the original stories), and yet--even if I tried to enter the film without expectations--I couldn't help but be disappointed that the film didn't aim to be anything more intelligent than a popcorn-appropriate, Hollywood summer movie.

Further Reading:

• Movie Homepage
• The Original Sherlock Holmes Stories (a list of links to the full texts of each) [Sherlockian.net]
• Review at Spot.ph
• Sherlock Holmes on Rotten Tomatoes
• Review at Click the City
• Review at Da couch Tomato
• Review at Alternatural Thoughts
• Review at Azrael's Merryland
• Review at Blissery Loves Company

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