Sherlock Holmes (2010): A Comprehensive IC Review
Where to start, where to start.
First and foremost, I would like to preface my imminent review with something of a disclaimer: while I profess that I’ve chided Watson on more than one occasion for failing to be significantly impartial regarding his documentation of my own escapades, I will break this golden rule in my chronicling of this film, for two main reasons:
1) I don’t believe that integrity is much needed in this forthcoming ‘analysis’, and
2) To attempt to keep even the smallest semblance of my sanity by allowing myself to glaze over the glaringly enormous deficiencies that this movie provides.
That said, I think it would be prudent of me to proceed with the assessment itself.
To provide a preliminary and overarching opinion of the film, I ask that my readers allow me a spot of omniscience as I try to find the most…succinct way to summarize my overall ‘feelings’. I refer back to a particular line that was spoken in my own film-- aptly titled ‘Sherlock Holmes’, a subject which will be later discussed in greater detail-- that went something along the lines of: “my journey took me further down the rabbit-hole than I’d intended, and while I dirtied my fluffy white tail, I emerged…enlightened.” Now, allow me to make a few minor modifications to this quotation to make it more appropriate for my experiences regarding this particular ‘journey’. Attention may be paid in particular to the last segment of the citation.
“My journey took me further down the rabbit-hole than I’d anticipated, and indeed, my fluffy white tail was so thoroughly dirtied so as to leave me wondering if I would ever emerge from this expedition in one piece at all.”
I believe that says it all, doesn’t it?
In any case, let me proceed. This film, similarly to my own, is titled ‘Sherlock Holmes’, though made one year subsequent to the development of my own story. However, this title will soon reveal itself to be a horrendous misnomer for a myriad of reasons, all of which will be revealed in due time. It begins as only a modern cinematic spectacle can allow itself to begin: with gratuitous explosions set against a London rendered in something called a ‘green screen’, which no doubt makes more sense to you than I. Ironically enough, said gratuitous explosions are the only things to have a semblance of being placed in an accurate historical context-a concept with which the directors and screenwriters promptly do away once the preliminary excuse to provide the audience with a flashback is fulfilled. The scene moves as follows: Watson, ripe in age and nearing his hour of death, laments the destruction of London and urges for his young female caretaker to document his story regarding some spectacular adventure that he and an incarnation of myself experienced. I feel the need to point out some choice phrases in order to indicate that indeed, I may have missed some important cues that warned me to turn this film off right then and there. The fact that this Watson is referring to ‘Holmes’ wishes’, which would by some association be my wishes, is especially noteworthy:
1) Watson failed to chronicle this story “in deference to [his] wishes”
2) “He felt the public was not ready to hear this”
3) “His…least known accomplishment”
Perhaps it’s a spot of wishful thinking on my part to hope that all of these things were intended for me, specifically, to be suspicious of what might come to pass in the rest of the hour and 20 minutes of this film, and to turn it off before it could do any more permanent damage to the faculties of my mind. Perhaps this silver-screen incarnation of me, in a moment of lucidity, begged this rendition of Watson to defer from chronicling this adventure to spare all other incarnations of myself. Or perhaps I’m merely reading far too much into these inane words and trying to form some sort of rational conclusion, or, more likely, furiously justify my not having terminated my watching of it sooner.
In either case, what follows this foreboding introductory sequence is absolutely preposterous. You have been warned.
The movie then takes the audience roughly 40 years into the past, wherein Watson provides us with the very important insight that “it all began with some very strange occurrences.” This is roughly equivalent to an individual saying “something started at the beginning.” Needless to say, my faith in this incarnation of the Doctor already waxes thin. The focus of this scene is on a ship floating in some undefined body of water, seemingly peaceful until the calm is broken by a report of one of the mates having found something in the water. Following this startling revelation is approximately 3 minutes of the crew roaming around the deck, shouting every variety of “what was it?” and “it must be nothing!”, until we all tire of this pointless nonsense and wait for the inevitable rise of the sea-monster to ravage everyone on board. I interject my narrative here to mention that this movie, if removed of all the extraneous scenes of characters running and searching for things in a needlessly drawn-out manner, would most likely be edited down to roughly 40 minutes instead of the actual hour and a half.
But I digress.
Predictably, the ship is attacked by an undefined sea-creature rendered in special effects that even I’m able to define as horrifically outdated. At one point, a man climbs a rope ladder and simply waits there for no other reason than to allow the graphics maker to painstakingly animate a sequence in which the tentacle grabs hold of him and whisks him off-screen. Sheer bloody panic indeed.
The scene ends, much to everyone’s relief, and we are all finally privy to the introduction of a certain Mr. Holmes, who, much like his associate Dr. Watson, speaks too fast, fails to enunciate his words, stresses the wrong syllables, and has a voice that can only be described as ‘shrew-like’. The latter quality is reserved only for the supposed ‘world’s greatest consulting detective’, however, and it makes it quite distracting for one to pay attention to whatever he’s deducing, considering that his mode of speech is so ridiculous that it makes it rather difficult to focus on his logical thought processes. And from one Sherlock Holmes to another, that’s no mean feat. There’s some dialogue here concerning some matter of no importance, ending with Watson exclaiming: “I wonder why I spent 7 years in medical school”, to which Holmes replies, “for the women,” and to which Watson concedes immediately with a mild “mm, yes.” This is the extent of witty banter this movie will provide for its duration.
I realize now that my recounting of this movie is getting tiresomely long, most likely because it is my prerogative to point out each and every one of the narrative’s glaring flaws. While I find that it is my fellow duty to man as a Sherlock Holmes to renounce every inch of this movie so as to preserve my own integrity, I realize and acknowledge that that would take ages upon ages. I’ll speed up the process to save you, the reader, the headache, and my own fingers from inevitable tendonitis.
The pair then take off to examine a survivor from the aforementioned fallen ship, managing only to find out through ridiculously over-acted ramblings that the one responsible for sinking it was an enormous, tentacled monster. While skeptical, Holmes and Watson go off and investigate the matter, traveling to the site of the shipwreck accompanied by our ever-intrepid Inspector Lestrade, who informs Holmes that he recently found himself in the company of Holmes’s brother, Thorpe.
Thorpe.
Thorpe.
You may have noticed by now that I’ve stopped referring to this incarnation of Holmes as an incarnation of myself. The above should be conclusive proof that this man actually has nothing to do with me at all, and has only adopted my name to further his investigative pursuits by borrowing my good name. Rationalization? Denial? I think not.
In any case, after the discussion of Lestrade meeting with…Thorpe, the movie attempts to engage us with roughly ten minutes of Watson scaling down cliffs for no objective other than to assert that there is nothing of interest below the cliff walls. Once again, I emphasize that if the movie removed itself of such extraneous scenes, I would have been spared the extra 45 minutes or so of nothing.
Meanwhile, back in London, the audience is privy to an extremely awkward scene of a lad who is physically 18 and vocally 5 soliciting a prostitute who is physically and vocally in her late 30s. The woman is appropriately named ‘Mrs. Pinchcock’, which may have prompted a giggle or two if not for the fact that everything else about this scene made one feel uncomfortable. Fortunately, this illicit rendez-vous is cut short by the abrupt and completely unannounced/unforeshadowed appearance of what can only be a dinosaur in Victorian England, a creature which mauls the unfortunate lad but curiously ignores the lady for…better pursuits, possibly. My capability to suspend belief for the sake of fantasy was worn dangerously thin by this point, but my pride forbid me from stopping here before the ‘real mystery’ began. How foolish of me, in retrospect-I was waiting for something that would never come.
The scene then cuts to the next morning, where Holmes and Watson discuss absolutely nothing over a nice cup of tea and a good breakfast. There is a surreal moment where Holmes acknowledges Lestrade’s competence and admits to having, I quote, a “soft spot” for the Inspector, which I must have misheard since I was in the process of filling my pipe with the strongest tobacco for the umpteenth time as this conversation took place. Nevertheless, after Holmes discusses Lestrade fondly and asserts his belief of mythical monsters, the detective and his Doctor set off for a refreshing walk in the park for no apparent reason other than to set up the subsequent dinosaur chase scene. Which does, in fact, happen, in this film’s customary drawn-out, pointless fashion, where the audience watches and tries to stifle a yawn as our eyes glaze over from the repeated use of what is known as the ‘shaky-cam technique’. Suddenly the duo find themselves in a jungle in the middle of a nice park in London, chased by a dinosaur that seems ripped straight out of some other movie where the dinosaur, no doubt, actually made sense in that film’s particular context. And lo, the chase ends as abruptly as it began, with no rhyme or reason to the matter except to provide the audience with needless action sequences. Looking at my notes, this is the point where I chronicled that my faith in humanity-or in modern filmmaking, rather-vanished.
The middle segment of this film can only be described as a long intermission from the plot. The only notable event is when Watson meets both the villain and the villain’s female partner, but manages to allow this to completely fly over his head despite the obviously sinister countenance of both of these characters. The film also alludes to the possibility of dinosaurs having enough sentience to know what items are of value to steal and also how to strategize with respect to its modern surroundings. Allowing oneself to suspend an enormous amount of belief and concede to the latter, I find the former utterly ridiculous considering that said dinosaur’s forearms are too short to grab hold of anything, let alone use them to steal important artifacts. But I suppose that using logic to argue the events of this movie is akin to attempting to justify that pig Latin is a derivative of actual Latin. It simply cannot be done.
To proceed with the ‘plot’, in a ridiculous turn of events involving dinosaurs in factories and finding a stone that can be “found in variable places” yet can only belong to one location in particular anyway, our intrepid heroes find themselves in the lair of the villain himself. They also manage to find where the villain is storing his dinosaur and tentacle monster for easy access. It should be noted here that after they find these mythical creatures stored conveniently in the villain’s abandoned castle, we never see them again nor do we ever find out what happened to them. We never find out how exactly these creatures were acquired, nor do we ever discover why the villain chose these particular creatures to carry out his dastardly plot. They simply exist, unquestioned, because it is a given that after the audience watches this movie, they will furiously endeavor to un-watch it, thus eliminating the need for the directors to explain anything of any remote importance. Fact.
In any case, in an utterly unsurprising turn of events, the villain is Holmes’ brother, Thorpe, who was only mentioned by Lestrade earlier in the film to indicate that yes, he will indeed be the antagonist in this story. What follows is a long, cumbersome, and utterly inane explanation of Thorpe’s plans, which center around the bombing of the Buckingham Palace and is motivated by revenge. But revenge against whom? Who would warrant such heinous plans for the sole aim to demolish his character? Who deserves such rampant destruction upon his name?
Ah, but of course, who else but our illustrious Inspector Lestrade?
Yes, dear reader-Lestrade. Our bumbling fool finally gets the attention he deserves, it seems. Thorpe blames Lestrade for shooting the bullet that paralyzed him from the neck down, and he also blames Lestrade for a myriad of other things, all of which are ridiculous and have no merit in repeating here.
Perhaps one would also profit from the description that Thorpe is a former paraplegic who managed to encase himself in a robotic body, and who can, I quote, “control his [robotic arm] with [his] mind”.
Bravo, Thorpe. Bravo.
But the main issue that should be addressed now is not the issue of the events that follow this ridiculous unveiling of Brother Thorpe’s plans. I am fairly certain that we have all predicted the outcome of the subsequent ‘showdown’, which involves a giant flying mechanical dragon squaring off against a highly improbable-looking hot air balloon. I am fairly sure that you, my reader, have figured out for yourself how this story will end. And if you haven’t, it ends with Holmes shooting Thorpe and ending the matter once and for all, in a turn of utterly obvious events. These are all things that are within the realm of comprehension and speculation, and thus need not be addressed in an effort not to be redundant. What I am going to address is of more critical value in that it is a piece of information so preposterous, so utterly unbelievable, that it is near-illuminating. A piece of crucial data that, while its origins are despicable, decidedly gives me some closure on the matter of why I can allow this movie to continue existing without drinking myself into a stupor or picking up the needle once more.
This piece of data is this: the man isn’t Sherlock Holmes at all.
The man, as Brother Thorpe reveals to us, is Robert Holmes.
Robert.
Robert.
Which brings me to a topic that I discussed in the very beginning of this rather long-winded review process. I had alluded to the importance of the film’s title, and here is where it becomes significant: the film title is a misnomer. It should have been called ‘Robert Holmes: the detective who calls himself Sherlock in order to promote himself as relevant to the general public’s interests’. Or perhaps ‘Robert Holmes: only Sherlock when he feels so inclined’. Or better yet, ‘Sherlock Holmes: But not really’. While the very idea that this film uses my own illustrious reputation to promote its deficiencies disagrees with my very essence, I take comfort in the fact that this man, with his shrewish ways and his nonsensical speaking, is not actually me at all.
And I leave you with that thought, as I close.