Holmes had become a tremendous and, to the author, suffocating success determined to write serious fiction, he said, “I must save my mind for better things, even if it means I must bury my pocketbook with him.” He called this 1893 tale “The Adventure of the Final Problem,” - a clue to his intentions that even Watson could have deduced - and sent Holmes and Moriarty tumbling over the Swiss falls and into history. In the canon, Holmes and Moriarty met in only one story, which Conan Doyle meant to be his hero’s farewell. Holmes leave Watson and Simza the little task of unmasking a would-be assassin and saving Europe at a Swiss summit meeting, while he plays chess with Moriarty on a terrace overlooking the Reichenbach Falls. …except that, this time, Watson is the hero. In the spirit of Billy Wilder’s much better 1970 Conan Doyle gloss, The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes, the detective unravels a riddle of international espionage… To stop Moriarty, he needs to deprive Watson of his honeymoon, while enlisting the help of a gypsy named Simza (Noomi Rapace, who was Lisbeth Salander in the Swedish film trilogy of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo). Holmes suspects the fine, fatal hand of Professor James Moriarty (Jared Harris of Mad Men), a revered mathematician, confidant of royalty and, beneath his modest celebrity, “the Napoleon of Crime” - which would make Holmes the Wellington of detectives. (SPOILER ALERT: That didn’t occur until 1914). The year is 1891, and anarchist explosions threaten to kindle a great war among the European nations. The first half-hour plays like a ragged dress rehearsal for the rest of the movie, and replaces the 2009 film’s burly energy with frantic incident: bombs, chases and more bombs. Downey, looking seedier than usual, and seeming less invested in the role, spits out banter that frequently lacks juice.
#Movie review sherlock holmes 2009 movie#
The movie again employs what might be called Ratiocination Visualization - brief, vigorous montages showing how Holmes thought through some devilish conundrum - and they’re still cool but now familiar. (READ: Mary Pols on the 2009 Sherlock Holmes)Ĭrossdressing is just one way that Ritchie, directing a script by the married team of Michele and Kieran Mulroney, amps up the sensational aspects to keep himself, and conceivably the viewer, interested. This is a bromance, Victorian-style, with Watson the stalwart, stuffy gentleman and Holmes, often, the flirtatious female. So the women in the two men’s lives - Mary and Holmes’ wily inamorata Irene Adler (Rachel McAdams) - are quickly and rudely dispatched from A Game of Shadows. But the given of a Sherlock Holmes story is that the detective must have his faithful chronicler otherwise, to the public, Holmes wouldn’t exist. If this were a romantic comedy, Watson and Mary would be a loving couple harassed by a deranged outsider. So in Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, Guy Ritchie’s frenzied-with-benefits sequel to his 2009 hit, it’s only natural that Holmes (Robert Downey, Jr.) should not only attempt to forestall the wedding of his dear Watson (Jude Law) but, given the chance, toss the good doctor’s bride Mary (Kelly Reilly) out of a train as it speeds across a high bridge. (READ: Which Holmes story was recently banned for anti-Mormon tendencies)
Watson was Dean Martin to Holmes’ Jerry Lewis, Crosby to his Hope, Felix to his Oscar - any duo that was both mismatched and inseparable. Homes would say, “Go,” and Watson, “Whoa!” Introducing the pair in 1887, Conan Doyle devised a formula that was replayed in dozens of good-cop/mad-cop movies ( Lethal Weapon, 48 Hrs., Die Hard With a Vengeance) and also defined the relationship of most comedy teams. Indeed, Watson was the audience’s surrogate, the “normal” one, who would filter, explain and occasionally apologize for the exploits of his more gifted and eccentric pal. Friend and foil, colleague and biographer, Watson marveled at Holmes’ powers of deduction no less than the reader did. Holmes was the superman - a hero above and apart, keen of intellect, able to deduce grand schemes from minute evidence - and Dr.
He invented one of the world’s most famous characters, pioneered the modern detective tale and, in a way, created the buddy movie. Follow Conan Doyle achieved quite the hat trick in his four novellas and 56 short stories about Sherlock Holmes.
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