sherlock holmes

being a long time guy ritchie fan, i've wondered what he could do on a larger scale- a bigger story, bigger toys and bigger numbers with more zeros. yet when i heard he was to direct a version of sir arthur conan doyle's creation, i was skeptical, weren't you? sherlock holmes solves crimes cleverly in his head- all neat as a pin. ritchie's movies involve too cool for school thugs very violently running their own little intersecting pocket worlds-very messy and very small scale. matthew vaughn, (director of  "layer cake", longtime friend, actor and producer on ritchie's prior films) in an interview on "layer cake"'s dvd bonus features complained so much about how ritchie ran a set that when vaughn had a chance to direct he did everything the opposite. so, i was also worried, so much so that while watching this movie i wondered just how much ritchie actually did to make it what it is. well, whatever he did or didn't do, the result, "sherlock homes", is a lot of fun.

One good thing about all the advance year long hype of ritchie taking on such a well known character was that by the time i went to the theater to see it i knew that the holmes story line was really just a suggestion and that i had actually warmed up to the idea of a messier sherlock. (sherlock holmes was a neat freak and a misogynist while dr. watson was around mostly to administer the injections of cocaine.) while basil rathbone and nigel bruce play cleaned up versions of these characters perfectly, the modern version needed some vamping to garner a new audience- this holmes comes with his own batmanesque utility belt.  i'm glad they skipped the cocaine references so as not to glamorize that practice for this younger fanbase.  although one of my favorite holmes related movies is "the seven percent solution" in which holmes (nicol williamson) and sigmund freud (alan arkin) another famous cocaine addict, join forces to solve a crime or whatever, who cares? it's fun.

in "sherlock holmes", producer joel silver puts together some of my favorite things- guy ritchie, robert downey jr, jude law and eddie marsan (the best thing to come out of pbs's recent offering of dicken's "little dorritt"), who play holmes, watson and the ever incompetent chief of police, lestrad.  and sherlock of course. i have read all of doyle's holmes stories and have just finished another book in which holmes is in his 90's, retired, raises bees in the countryside, while going in and out of demetia- in other words, i'm a big fan of sherlock holmes.  the screenplay is tight and the supporting cast is great, however i have a problem with rachel mccadams playing sherlock's erstwhile love who's meant to be a clever career criminal.  she looks seventeen.  beautiful, yes, and she translates well to a period piece (not like carmen diaz in "gangs of new york" or carmen diaz in any movie really) but too young to be so experienced. and if she looks 17 now, when sherlock/downey, looking 50ish now, and she first hooked up she must have been 12.  surely there's an older actress out here who could have played this role and who wouldn't have distracted me into doing math during the film.

there are a lot of ritchie touches in the presentation of the action such as fights in stop motion photography, that translate very well in a big budget action yet period piece. so despite all my skeptiscism, worrying and wondering i have to hand it to guy ritchie for turning out another fun, watchable, smart, and cool looking action film.  it is a guy ritchie movie after all.