Films 'n' Stuff

Well, films tend to dominate what I care about the most and, since I figured that I shouldn't give up on this little blogging excercise quite so soon (I left it for nearly six weeks, that's good going), I'm gonna start talking about the movies I go and see at the cinema. Right here. In these blogs.

So, 2010 was off to a good start, but first one I'm gonna talk about was actually in the last week of 2009. It came out on Boxing Day, to be precise, it starred an actor that my brother is an admitted fanboy of and a concept that made me turn my nose up in distaste when I first heard it. Oh, how I was wrong.

SHERLOCK HOLMES.

I loved it. It was a bit too American-ised, the plot was pretty thin, the only research the writers conducted into late 19th Century England was to watch 'From Hell' and the relation to the original Sherlock Holmes stories by Mr. Doyle is tentative at best... and I frickin' loved it.

It was ballsy, it was fast paced, it was clever, it was witty, it was charming it was well-acted and the characters played beautifully off one another. The whole film was conveyed in a sense of elaborate mental process that the audiance has trouble following, probably just as much as Holmes does.

It's very Hollywood, but we find Hollywood movies reassuring, so I suppose it's okay.

As I say, the plot of the movie, the villanous Lord Blackwood and dastardadly schemes are pretty weak, they really only serve to make the bad guy for the next movie (and there's no doubt there'll be a next movie) look even bigger and meaner.

No prizes for guessing who that bad guy is, although the way that McAdams pronounces it... it just isn't right. Americans simply can't say the name with the correct amount or reverence. There's something haughty in that name that they just don't get.

There is one thing, however, that makes this movie stand out. One thing that puts it head and shoulders above all other Sherlock adaptations (with the exception of House, of course). That thing, simply put, is this:

Watson.

A Sherlock story that makes Watson a likeable, dependable, capable, interesting and downright solid character? Perish the thought! All of Watson's parts in the past have been as a bumbling, overweight bufoon who is simply there as an audiance surrogate for Sherlock to explain his brilliance too. In this film, he explains it to himself, thus freeing up Watson to be a heroic, crime-fighting, arse-kicking sidekick and a half, with as much presence as Sherlock and as much appeal as a free Cornetto. Why did nobody ever think of that before, eh? It transforms the dynamic of the two from being a one-sided railroad to an equal-part team.

Great romp of a film, good action, nice twists, doesn't challenge an audience too hard and it delivers. Robert Downey Jr. has done it again, that overly talented handsome man, him.

(Next time: Daybreakers)