day 38 - Sherlock Holmes

OK film fans, a snowy Monday night has descended with blustery cold enticing us to stay inside with a roaring fire, a snug blanket or at the very least a Snuggie. Most cold nights I'm up for a deep meaningful drama, but since the week has just begun I've decided for some lighter fair. Considerably lighter as it turns out.

Sherlock Holmes is the latest film from British director Guy Ritchie. Those of you familiar with Ritchie's other works might think this is an unusual choice for Ritchie. It is. Now I can't say this is a bad fit, just not ideal. Ritchie has re-imagined Sherlock and Watson (Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law) as Batman and Robin crossed with The Sixth Sense. This is an entertaining film, complete with grand CGI effects, slo-mo fights and a storyline so filled with red herrings it only make sense in retrospect. There have been over 200 films about Sherlock Holmes, all portraying him as an eccentric but highly educated man, a musician and master of disguises, but the only remaining vestiges here are his pipe and the occasional summation of clues that provided his deduction.

As a slightly nerdy youth I was taken by the Sherlock Holmes (and Charlie Chan) films and TV shows that would pop up occasionally. The cleverness of the scripts, the amazing deductions and the logic of it all always appealed to me. Since this is my basis for comparison, the new film seems out of step with the traditional appeal of the character. The irony here is our culture seems to have created this view of Sherlock Holmes based on films restricted by the moral code of Hollywood in the 30s, 40s and 50s. We have all but forgotten, myself included, the Sherlock Holmes of the books was a man known to use drugs when bored, was a bare-knuckle boxer and had trust issues with women; respecting only Irene Adler (Rachel McAdams), a woman whose intellect and resourcefulness matched his own.

Ritchie, having both the ability and the freedom to explore the darker side of Sherlock, takes the source material and spins it into a modern day action film. While glossy and rambunctious, beneath the veneer it generates very little of the fun I had as a kid searching for clues along with Sherlock in an effort to discern the truth before he could arrive at his conclusions. The game like quality of its predecessors is gone and like most action films made today, it's best if you stop thinking and just go along for the ride.