Sherlock Holmes (2009)

I watched this with my father because we both liked Snatch and therefore Guy Ritchie, the director of this film and Snatch. I also happen to like Jude Law’s face.

Too bad it didn’t live up to his name much. The only really Ritchie-like points were the marvelous presentation of credits at the end of the film (personally my favourite part of the movie), the slow-mo bare fisted fights, the abundance of bare fisted fights, and the choice of interesting and awesome music such as incomprehensible Irish singing played at the credits. The rest were just kind of normal and not super unique.

It also didn’t seem like Sherlock Holmes at all since there was little mystery solving and about 92% of the movie consisted of action, action, and action. The rest revolved around wisecrack jokes which were sometimes hard to catch due to slight mumbling/too-clipped accent that Downey Jr. spoke in, and um…more action. The details of the entire mystery as solved by Holmes was revealed in the last ~3 minutes of the movie and were practically explained in one paragraph. What happened to revealing them as you went? Not nice, guys.

And since when was Watson a young, suave-looking chap who was looking to settle down with a beautiful lady anyways? Also, why is Holmes better at fighting than solving mysteries, and why does he look older than Watson? How is this Sherlock Holmes at all, other than the fact that the characters have the same names as characters in the original series?

The cast was alright, but nobody did an exceptional job. I personally took a liking to Jude Law’s Watson because he was an exasperated yet nice fellow, but I didn’t really care for Downey Jr.’s Holmes because even though he was interesting, he was at times hard to hear and just. not. Holmes-y. Rachel McAdams had a really gorgeous wardrobe and played a smart, capable female character, but the movie didn’t let her show off those supposed talents at all, even though she had a sufficient amount of screen time. The accents in the movie were also inconsistent since McAdams didn’t try faking an English accent and just spoke in her usual voice. Maybe that would’ve been for the best, but it is nevertheless jarring. If she was supposed to be foreign, I missed the part where they said her character was American lol.

The length of the movie felt super, super long, and I was just kind of waiting for it to end already. It is kind of entertaining overall, but it felt like it dragged on and on and on, and when I finished watching it, I didn’t feel like I remembered what happened because there wasn’t a solid flow to it. All the vital points were explained too fast, and it seemed like the writers wanted to “get the talking over with” so they can squeeze in more action.

I know that this wasn’t meant to be a substantial movie, but I did expect more than just loads of action. I was really hoping for some really memorable lines and jokes a la Ritchie but it wasn’t there! Maybe it was because he didn’t write or produce it, but still…?! 69/100