I love Sherlock Holmes. I love the original Conan Doyle stories, and I love Jeremy Brett's iconic television portrayal.
The way I coped with the first Robert Downey Jr. Sherlock Holmes movie was to think of it as an entirely different animal totally unconnected with the books. It worked. I enjoyed it; the plot was relatively harmless and the homoeroticism between Downey's Holmes and Jude Law's Watson was amusing and, quite frankly, rather hot.
Once was enough, though. This second time around I found the plot a bit confusing, and the interplay between the characters a little forced. Sadly, the eye-candy, while as pretty as before, simply wasn't enough to hold my interest.* But what annoyed me most of all is something usually found these days in 3D movies.
I am tired of movies having with chase sequences featuring slow or stop-motion visuals that clearly exist only to show off the special effects. There are only so many slowed bullet impacts or frozen explosions I can see before I get really impatient. Guy Ritchie could have easily cut the running through the forest scene in half just by not overindulging in showy "look-at-me!" shots.
Give me storytelling over empty flash any day.
*I do want to note, however, that Jared Harris was great as Moriarty: menacing without ever becoming a caricature.
No comments:
Post a Comment