Thursday, May 6, 2010

Films headed in opposite directions...

We recently netflixed Sherlock Holmes (2009) and Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009).


All I'm going to say about Mr. Fox is that I have no desire to check the Dahl book out of the library to see the differences.


Sherlock Holmes, on the other hand, makes me want to go back and reread all the original source material.  I haven't liked Doyle's detective this much since Young Sherlock Holmes.  This is a tight, dense, fast-paced script which, like most mysteries, is impossible for the viewer/reader to untangle because Holmes has information that you don't, but there are a number of "mini-reveals" throughout the movie in which certain events and pieces of the overall plot are explained (as opposed to, say, the first Mission Impossible movie in which you're kept in the dark about everything throughout and simply don't care what happened by the end).  This is a reasonably clever way of making us feel enlightened enough to be engaged in the plot while saving the big reveal.


I also really enjoyed this movie's take on the Watson/Holmes friendship.  Growing up, I was given the impression by most adaptations that Watson was a fat bumbling dullard who would be of no interest to someone like Holmes.  Here they are partners.  Holmes is still the genius, but Watson is very sharp and actually contributes to the friendship.  Of course, even with the strong script, none of this would work if Jude Law and Robert Downey, Jr., didn't do a superb job of pulling off this relationship.  Rachel McAdams and Downey, Jr., are also good together onscreen, but suffer in comparison to the chemistry between Downey, Jr. and Paltrow in the Iron Man movie.  We might even actually go to the theater to see the sequel!

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