Film Review: Sherlock Holmes (12A) ****
AND SO the decade is set to end exactly as it began – with the thundering, wonderful sound of a horse and carriage rushing along.
Few films in between have used such an aurally-pleasing mode of transport, but Guy Ritchie happily follows Tim Burton’s example with Sleepy Hollow – the first major release of the new Millennium back on January 7, 2000.
After beginning with a black and white Warner Bros logo, which is fast becoming a company speciality thanks to Clint Eastwood, Sherlock’s opening scene is magnificent proof that Ritchie has always been one of our most visually-gifted directors.
Unfortunately, the likes of Snatch, Swept Away, Revolver and RocknRolla have also been appalling films for various reasons – probably because he also wrote them.
The good news is that Sherlock Holmes is Ritchie’s best film to date, surpassing Lock Stock thanks to an inventive James Bond-meets-The Da Vinci Code ability to worm out of every tricky hole he finds himself in.
This time relying on other writers to reinvent the most filmed character of all, Ritchie stays focussed for once.
Arthur Conan Doyle’s Victorian London is wonderfully realised in every street and with the extraordinary sight of Tower Bridge under construction, while Hans Zimmer’s inventive score (Gladiator / Pirates of the Caribbean) is easily one of the year’s best.
The complex plot is far-fetched, but only in a way which suggests you might like a second viewing.
And at least Sherlock (Robert Downey Jr) has the time to explain it all in the end.
He might be American, but Downey Jr sounds right and looking like a cross between Jeremy Irons and Hugh Laurie leaves Jude Law’s Dr Watson wobbling in the shade.
Mark Strong is a capable villain as Lord Blackwood, an aristocrat who has apparently come back from the dead, while Rachel McAdams is too good looking to have been so underused as Irene Adler!
Dublin-born, Birmingham-based ex-boxer Joe Egan (Big Man) makes another cameo appearance after Dead Man Running recently, but his star is set to rise in the year ahead.
The biggest problem with Sherlock Holmes is its unappetising level of violence, especially at the beginning.
Watching people being kicked in the skull and smashed over the head with sticks is not my idea of a 12A.
Of several hanging scenes, the BBFC defends the certificate thus: ‘There is no glamorisation of dangerous behaviour that young children are likely to copy, and it is made clear that hanging is not a game and something which could be fatal’. On their heads be it!
