UK Release: 16th December 2011
Watched in Cinema: Wednesday 21st December 2011
Rating: 12A
Genre: Action, Adventure, Crime
Runtime: 2hrs 10mins
IMDb Plot Synopsis: Sherlock Holmes and his sidekick Dr. Watson join forces to outwit and bring down their fiercest adversary, Professor Moriarty.
My Review: Since the first Holmes offering was so captivating and, well... fun, I was hoping for more in this sequel. And while it was pretty absorbing and even more energetic (if that’s possible!) it lacked a certain charm the first one had. This may be due to how long it was, as it dragged a bit in the middle. It was complex, which is usually thrilling in Sherlock programmes, but by the end I felt there was too much going on for the audience to fully comprehend what was happening. many of the plot strands were thrown away in the last act and could have perfectly sufficed as a movie in themselves. That isn’t to say it wasn’t an enjoyable jumble of a plot. It looked absolutely stunning and many scenes, especially the running in the forest sequence was just mind-blowingly beautiful, with the use of slow motion - and almost bullet time effects - that was just cinematically remarkable. It also had some nice little funny touches throughout between Holmes and Watson, particuarly the train scenes which I thought were very clever indeed: we got to see a deeper side to their relationship. It was a shame the supporting cast weren’t used so well. Rachel McAdams’ character who I loved previously was thrown away at the beginning which I thought was a shame as she had great potential. Instead she was replaced by one of the worst female characters to grace our screens in Hollywood recently. She may look savvy and independent, but no, she had almost nothing to do and literally nothing to say. Whole scenes would go by and all she would have done was eaten or drunken something, or rode a horse. She was useless and it was insulting to female characters as they could have just been upfront about her being there just to be eye candy, however they falsely set her up to be a shrewd, which I believe to be worse. Now, I’m not saying that Noomi Rapace was bad, i’m sure she did the best she could with what she was doing, I’m only saying the character as a whole was just pathetic. It was a shame and this, combined with the plot being so complex, with the team dotting all over Europe seemingly for the hell of it, made me not appreciate it as much as the first. I liked it and would love to see it again sometime but I couldn’t help but feel like they threw everything into the plot and it came out a little too messy for me.
Score: 8.5/10
Maybe it is just me but it hard to think of anyone as Sherlock Holmes other than Jeremy Brett, the late actor who played it to near absolute perfection in the BBC granada TV series. That was a work of art so near to the description of Holmes by Sir Doyle that you began to doubt if Sir Doyle had seen Brett through a time machine and written Holmes or vice versa. I have seen many movies and serials of Holmes by various productions but Brett can never be replaced as Holmes. For me, Holmes never dies at Reichenbach Falls (though Doyle was forced to get him back in the Adventure of the empty house). For me, Holmes died the day Brett died. Every great actor or director once in their lifetime gets buried under a tomb of immmortality because of one performance or movie (Ramesh Sippy could never shake off SHOLAY....never). Same with Brett...till his end, he could never be anyone other than Holmes.
ReplyDeleteI tried seeing Holmes Part 1 as potrayed by Robert Downey jr.....How does one describe it?Too painful to watch one of the greatest fictional literary figures ever being massacred by mediocrity. I stopped after 20 minutes and went back to the comfort of youtube to see Brett in my favorite story of all...The Adventure of the Dancing Men. No offence against Downey Jr. He may be a fine actor but the nuances you need to play the mad genius of Holmes.....sorry....no way. It's like asking any actor of today to re-enact Vijay Verma of DEEWAR...That was a role that Amitabh was born to play.