So. I watched Sherlock Holmes 2 last night with my parents...at 10:20...and didn't get out til 12:30 and then I had to go to work today so...tired feelings all around! But I'm glad I got to see it. I had been wanting to see it for the longest time and had no one to go with for the longest time.
Spoilers ahoy! After the jump.
The Breakdown:
+The Cast:
=Robert Downey Jr. as Sherlock Holmes: I really like RDJ as an actor. He has very quick comedic timing but can really do emotional scenes well. I can understand why the casting director picked him for Sherlock Holmes. He has a very almost subconscious condescending nature and can be very arrogant but there's an extreme likability about him. You can't hate him no matter how hard you try. He's just too charming. And in this one you really feel for his character. When Irene Adler stands him up at the restaurant, it kind of breaks your heart. And the pan out of him eating alone, eyes wide open, unblinking, clearly saying on his face, "I don't care but I do," is one of the most saddest tableaus I've seen of Holmes because it represents how utterly alone he is in his world. Sherlock's loneliness is one of the big themes that runs through the movie. He's feeling deserted by Adler and Watson. And so he throws himself into his work. The whole movie is actually Sherlock trying to save the only friend he has. If Moriarty hadn't threatened Watson, Holmes probably wouldn't have played the "game," so to speak, as desperately. And RDJ really brings that across the screen. His little looks away as he repeats, "Alone," the look he gives Watson when he says that he'll never ask him to go on another case after this one, when Watson finds Adler's bloody handkerchief in the basket and finally understands what had happened and Holmes just picked it up, smells her perfume one last time and tosses it into the wind, and the end of the case where Holmes understand that the only way for Watson to be safe is to sacrifice himself, grab Professor Moriarty and throw them both off the balcony. The look he gives Watson is one of peace and regret and "I'm sorry, so sorry, you have to see this." So all in all, I give RDJ's acting a thumbs UP.
RDJ's English accent on the other hand...I give a thumbs DOWN. You would think that after two movies he would be able to procure a better accent than the one he has. It's very...clipped and mumbled through and you can hardly understand what he's saying sometimes. And it's obviously very bad compared to Jude Law who...is British. So unless he just doesn't have a penchant for accents or...the person they picked to train him in his accent is horrible or they did that on purpose...I don't know why, maybe they think that giving him a clipped accent makes him sound even more intelligent? It sounds to me like an American trying so very hard to be British but not succeeding. And he spoke French so well in the first movie! Unless they dubbed over his own speech. Sometimes you can't see him speak the French, his back is to the camera. Only the really easy phrases like "I don't know," or "With pleasure." So maybe...dubbing? Oh well. It was said that Guy Ritchie thought his accent was "flawless" and this dude is British. I mean...what has he been smoking? Is it just me? I'm not even English and I thought that his accent was bad.
=Jude Law as Dr. John Watson: I like Jude Law as Watson, I like his little mustache, I like his limp, I like that he's handsome, I like that he's a gambler and a womanizer and obviously drinks too much...and that both he and Holmes do like to get up to all kinds of shenanigans even though Watson says he doesn't want to. Watson is obviously the more well-adjusted of the two and can leave the consulting business whenever he wants to, it's not a part of him like it is with Holmes. But he likes it, the excitement and adventure no matter how much he tries to deny it. I like that they flip this dynamic. A lot of times, Watson is portrayed as this fat older man, who sits around with his handlebar mustache and must be talked down to and have things explained all the time. Watson follows Holmes around like someone who can't get enough of him. But in these series of movies, it is Holmes that cannot get on without Watson. Holmes who is trying to make his best friend, his only friend, stay just a little bit longer. I like that Watson is actually smart enough on his own. That he's a Doctor and a Soldier, that since he's been with Holmes, he's picked up enough powers of "deduction" that he can do part of Sherlock's job for him. That Sherlock trusts him enough to put that extremely important job in his hands. And that he saves Sherlock's life time after time. It's not Sherlock that has to run around after his sidekick...it's Watson that has to run around after this man who acts like an overgrown infant. Watson gets frustrated and annoyed but he knows that Holmes has his back. It's the ultimate bromance. And Jude Law is a great Watson. The way he and RDJ can communicate with no words, just looks, is an amazing talent. There was sometimes little dialogue between the two, just looks and expressions in the face which I think is difficult to do. And you can tell the characters have been friends so long that they have no need for words anymore.
=Noomi Rapace as Simza: She was alright. Her character was actually kind of interesting but you don't get to find out a lot about her. She's sort of a background character since the story mostly revolves around Holmes, Watson and Moriarty. Her fighting was great. I like that she ran with the boys and it was believable. She could come off as being really wooden, especially those scenes where she's looking for her brother so the whole time her face is...kinda slack, but I think her face is extremely expressive even when she's just looking wide-eyed at the camera. She's not pretty in a conventional sense but there is something beautifully unique about her face. And oh man...I love that her character didn't end up becoming a love interest for Sherlock. Geez...it's nice not to have any unresolved sexual tension between a female character and male character for once. I think there was more sexual tension between Holmes and Watson than Simza and Sherlock. (Which they've been playing off of since the first movie...but I'll get to that later.) She holds up her own. Her character is there for a reason other than just having the main character get into her pants. She has a brother who is part of Moriarty's plot, she is part of the Gypsies who help Holmes and Watson get over the French border to Germany, she's looking for her brother, she helps them escape the factory, she ultimately helps Watson find out which of the ambassadors is her brother, the assassin. So she has a purpose. Hooray. There needs to be more characters like her.
=Jared Harris as Professor Moriarty: He was...not intimidating enough? I feel like he was very pleasant. And not the psychotic type of pleasant, just...pleasant. I think since he gave all his dirty work to that sharpshooter and assassin, Sebastian Moran, he just didn't come off as dangerous enough. Moran actually seemed more evil. The one scene where he has Holmes strung up with a meat hook is sort of harrowing but too little too late. Or maybe that's the genius of Harris's Moriarty? Where we, along with him, are desensitized to the deaths that he has wrought. And his plan wasn't extremely diabolical...he just wanted to get rich, not rule the world like Blackwood in the first movie. A lot of people nowadays are Moriarty then...they get rich off of war. And World War I did end up happening two decades later. Soo...moot point?
=Stephen Fry as Mycroft Holmes: Hilarious. I love Stephen Fry so much. He is the perfect Mycroft I thought. When he walks around nude and Mrs. Watson comes out and is startled and he doesn't care at all made me laugh til I couldn't breathe. Or when Holmes throws her off the train into the water (to keep her safe...it's a long story...) and Mycroft, "Yoohoo, Mrs. Watson!" is just perfect. Any scene he's in he steals it.
+The Plot: It wasn't that engaging. I felt like it was just a vehicle to show Holmes and Watson's relationship in more depth and Holmes's character development. It was used to help lead everything up to where Holmes sacrifices himself. I mean like I said World War I was going to come in whether he allows it or not. I felt like basically what he did was useless. Like Moriarty says, "They're going to start a war on their own." I guess Holmes won in the fact that Moriarty's money gets taken away by Lestrade and Mrs. Watson. But still. I'm guessing Moriarty is going to come back...and be more pissed than ever. Which means he'll probably come after Watson again...setting up for the third one...again. But then how does this plot tie in with the first one? I mean why would Moriarty want to get rid of the Parliament members? Was he part of Blackwood's little secret group? That's what I don't get. In the first one he wants to rule the world, in the second one he just wants to be rich...is he toning down his ambitions or something...? Also it was a bit boring in the middle. Some of the scenes of dialogue that are supposed to push the plot along just made me tired. Maybe it was because I was already sort of tired by 10:20 but the editing could have been a little tighter.
+The Comedy: FUNNY AS HELL. Seriously. The beginning fight sequence with Sala Baker from Lord of the Rings...(I am such a nerd, I even know the main stunt guys from Lord of the Rings and what they look like) among the other stunt guys was actually pretty funny. All of Sherlock's disguises made it a fun game to try and figure out who he was. And the tour de force of funny was when we find out that he doesn't ride horses. So all the other characters are thundering by on their huge horses and he trots by on a little pony that doesn't even look big enough to hold all of him. And when he trots by all the characters taking a little break and yells out, "Slow and steady wins the race..." I lost it right then. Or when he's pretending to be a woman...and it's a horrible disguise. Or when he paints these elaborate urban camouflages on what is basically his long johns. And the very ending scene when the camera is stationary on Watson's office and all of a sudden you see the chair move...and he's sitting in the chair in his long john camouflage. All of the banter between Sherlock and Watson. But the horse thing takes the cake.
+Action and Fights: The fighting was SO GOOD this time around. Freaking amazing. I love the slow down of the fight sequences. And how Watson and Sherlock work as a team. I always thought Sherlock had an interesting fighting technique. It's very...zen, brutal efficiency, with a bit of kung fu and boxing thrown in there. I love when Watson is pinned down by the sniper and so he decides he's going to use the huge cannon to blow the light tower down. The guns...nnnghhh...I love the guns. It's a bit steampunk-y but I love a nice rifle. And the whole sequence on the train was really smart. He was a bit like MacGyver there or like one of those room escape games. The whole Cossack fighting scene was really great comedy wise. The running through the forest for their lives was shot in such an interesting way. I have never seen that before except maybe in the Matrix. The almost 360 slow down of the characters as they run and the forest blows up around them was shot extremely well. There is a sense of tension and anxiety but at the same time beauty in each frame. For that I have to commend the cinematographer and the director.
+Technology: There was a whole steampunk aspect to the movie which I'm not quite sure I liked that much. I mean I like steampunk but I feel like everyone is jumping on the bandwagon. I mean it's supposed to be 1891. I don't think that kind of technology was invented yet. Maybe if they had designed it like it looked like it belonged in the period I wouldn't have minded so much. But the technology just looks so OBVIOUSLY stereotypical steam punk with the gears and the polished brass intermixed with leather. I mean guns back then didn't have polished brass on it and wood was a big component, not made out of leather or all metal. Polished brass would have shone like a sun on a hot day on any battlefield and that's just not smart thinking.
Problems with UST.--Whenever there is any sort of Sherlock adaptation for recent day there is always unresolved sexual tension between Sherlock and Watson. Now from what I remember reading about the books I never thought that there was any sexual tension at all. But maybe I'm not remembering correctly. I never even thought they were that good of friends. I always thought it was Watson and his very eccentric roommate that he sort of just has to put up with because the flat is nice and he doesn't want to move somewhere else. I feel like this "bromance" type thing is very much a thing now. Hawaii 5-0 does it, BBC's Sherlock does it, any type of buddy movie does it. I mean why can't two guys just be friends without everyone in the history of the internet shipping them like no tomorrow? But that's just me.
All in all, I thought it was a pretty good movie. I think I'd buy it on DVD.
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