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It was very well done. For those who don't know European history leading up to ww1, I suggest you look into it before seeing this film to increase your enjoyment. However it isn't necessary to know this to enjoy this film. Robert Downey is excellent as always and Jude Law fills the part of Watson admirably.
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I went to see Sherlock Holmes today
I hope he was home, say hello to Watson please!
LoL
Rita
Have a safe and happy New Year Everybody!
Thanks for all your great stories.
Age is an issue of mind over matter.
If you don't mind, it doesn't matter!
(Mark Twain)
LoL
Rita
If it's anything like the first one,
historically, it was load of tripe and as being in the Sherlockian tradition, totally off the wall. It was just an excuse for loads of explosions and fights. I won't be wasting my time with the second however pleasing on the eye the two leads are from a female perspective. Jude law is certainly capable of better dramatic roles than this, though perhaps Guy Ritchie isn't.
Angharad
Angharad
Unfortunately
I agree with Angharad. The first wasn't too badly off, the second took a hard left turn from history and reality. I knew too much about history to really not wince all during the film. So many historic details were 'run over' that I lost count. However, I was able to suspend disbelief enough to enjoy the movie. It was the characters that made this worth watching and that was about it. Guy Ritchie took a wonderful concept and cast of actors and managed to, barely, make a fun film. In a decent director's hands this would've been a timeless classic, but such was not meant to be.
Just my opinion. :)
Hugs
Grover
PS: As a master of disguise, you would've thought Holmes would've at least had shaved before donning his 'costume' on the train. I found the result rather tasteless.
Sherlock Holmes: Action Hero
I blame the CGI/storyboard mindset, the idea that just because you CAN have the cannonball knock the wall out from under your hero, but luckily he is able to run across the tops of the stone blocks as they plunge through space, then leap and grab onto the flagpole jutting from the adjacent building, which flexes and slingshots him a long way through the air, and right into the basket of the hot air balloon the villian is escaping in, setting the scene for a really bitchin' midair swordfight as the increasingly perforated balloon descends right toward the bubbling caldera of that big volcano ...... you always should. The rather insulting assumption that the we in the audience will succumb to our ADD and start looking for chewing gum under the seat if Holmes and Watson do anything as wimpy and dull as simply outthink their nemesis.
I havent seen the second one but I half-liked the first because I'm a sucker for Robert Downey's dissolute charm---(Iron Man would've been pretty run of the mill with any other Tony Stark)---once I'd resigned myself to where they were going with all the hyperkinetic action sequences and accepted that its treatment of history was going to be so anachronistically dubious- unlike those two fine American NATIONAL TREASURE films, that really tell it like it is!
Hugs, Veronica
.
(All Guy Ritchie films should have a Rottweiller that squeaks...)
And remember...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifLqzLEB3E0
I went to see Sherlock Holmes today
Waiting 4 it to come to the cable channels like HBO
May Your Light Forever Shine
May Your Light Forever Shine
The Holmes character and
The Holmes character and plots are mostly too cerebral for the action oriented twitch and jerk gamers to spend any time with, so to be attractive at the box office, the movie makers know the characters have to suffer and become stilted characters that they were not. As someone has said, the actors have to be into running and jumping and rolling over cars and carriages, and making big booms and snide sexist remarks to make a movie pay nowadays.
I quite enjoyed the books, but then I knew how to read, unlike most of the twitch and jerk, instant gratification crowd. I don't recall any of the movie versions as being worth seeing, however the Masterpiece Theatre/Mystery BBC Holmes series with Jeremy Brett was really good and in keeping with the books.
CaroL
CaroL
In the context of his times...
Holmes (and Watson) were both "action heroes." Watson was a bruiser, an Army officer who'd faced down the wild Afghani tribesmen, was equally quick with his fists and his revolver, and was always ready for adventure, even when he ran off and left his wife and medical practice twisting slowly in the wind behind him. Holmes was a "Baritsu" expert and "single stick" player, the slightly antique equivalent of a CGI martial arts expert. If the heroes of the day had been a bit more spectacular, Holmes would have been flying through the air like a Chinese Kung Fu fighter, because Doyle's intention was to amaze and fascinate. Many, perhaps most, of his plots were fantastic, a man who doses himself with serum extracted from ape gonads and turns into an ape-like creature who has no difficulty scaling impossible walls, swinging around in trees, and seems to be as hairy as a modern werewolf, for only one example. Holmes (and Watson) may *brag* about the power of pure ratiocination, but in reality they were as much dependent on FX and wire harnesses as any modern film, just a little more quaintly realised.
Cheers,
Puddin'
A tender heart is an asset to an editor: it helps us be ruthless in a tactful way.
--- The Chicago Manual of Style
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Cheers,
Puddin'
A tender heart is an asset to an editor: it helps us be ruthless in a tactful way.
--- The Chicago Manual of Style
That isn't how I read the stories
obviously I was wrong, nor how various other films have portrayed him or Watson. Mind you I did have some concerns about Watson's apparent readiness to shoot things as he was supposed to be a doctor - he was obviously affected by getting hit by a Jezzail bullet.
Angharad
Angharad
I Recall Someone Saying...
...that Holmes was never quite the same after his resurrection. In any case, I think Holmes had long since jumped the proverbial shark by the time he was facing the guy with the monkey glands. I don't believe any other stories headed nearly that far off the wall, no pun intended.
Other than the "VR" that he shot into his living room wall in Study In Scarlet and his killing the pygmy who had the blowgun in Sign of the Four -- and I'll admit that the latter scene does fall rather squarely into the action-hero category, except that the hero and (crippled) villain are on separate boats and can't physically interact -- I can't recall Holmes (or Watson, apparently the better shot) ever using a gun as more than a threat. Even the "baritsu" is only mentioned after the fact (by Holmes, not Watson, in Doyle's rather desperate attempt to explain Holmes's survival and disappearance after The Final Problem) and was never actually seen, or used in another story.
Holmes is a gifted athlete and, according to one story, a former bare-knuckle boxer. But for the most part that remains a secondary part of things, except occasionally as a reason that he's not intimidated by large or strong bully types. I'd say that a solid majority of Holmes's cases are solved by keen observation and inductive or deductive (or inspired) reasoning, without any need for violent confrontation.
Eric