Sherlock Holmes: The Movie

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For the last few weeks I’ve been making fun of the movie Sherlock Holmes. It was suggested I should actually see the film before calling it mind numbingly stupid and an insult to the classic literary character. Fair enough, trailers don’t always do a movie justice. I saw the movie on Sunday, and I’m sad to say my initial analysis was right on the proverbial money.

OK, let’s be fair. If all you want is an action flick where good guys fight bad guys for two hours, this is a fun piece of eye candy which won’t tax your brain in any way. However, if you’re a fan of the character, and know anything about Sherlock Holmes, this movie is a piece of garbage.

If I had umpteen more hours in the day, I could address every inconsistency in the movie. However, having a finite amount of time at my disposal, I’ll just address a few of the low lights.

Yes, Sherlock did box as a youth. However, even the few times he was involved in fisticuffs with thugs, he was careful to observe Marquess of Queensberry rules. Being a gentleman, the thought of fighting any other way would have been unthinkable to him. Thus, his participation in extreme fighting was preposterous. Equally ludicrous were his & Watson’s Batman & Robin style brawls against bad guys. These were thinking reasoning men, armed yes, but hardly action heroes. What we saw, was more of a James Bond style movie with some Robert Langdon-esc plot twists thrown in because Dan Brown’s books and movies are popular right now.

On a final note, I must say I don’t begrudge Robert Downey Jr. his Best Actor Golden Globe for the role. He did the best he could do with what they gave him. The fault was with the writing.

Next, I suppose we’ll be treated to a machine gun wielding Hercule Poirot as he takes out those filthy Nazis. I can see the tag line now, “Hastings, I love it when a plan comes together.”