This film has gotten some negative reviews but I'm not certain why. This is a later, Edwardian Holmes. The period detail seems precise enough. The telephone came into common use after it was installed in Buckingham Palace by Queen Victoria, which acted as a kind of placing on of hands. Men smoked cigarettes as well as pipes and cigars, although women didn't, unless they were strong-minded aristocrats or adventurous Americans. Fingerprinting was routine.
Of course Rupert Everett is neither Basil Rathbone or Jeremy Brett, but at least he's tall. The character as written more or less fits Conan-Doyle's image except at the beginning, when Holmes insults Watson and tries to get rid of him. A bit too abrasive there. And Everett's default expression seems to be a sneer.
Nevertheless, all the most enjoyable aspects of the Holmes tales are present in this pastiche. True, the opening scene is a little gloomy. An opium den in London. A Chinese man is seen lighting the rolls of dope in the bowl of a pipe and the camera pans slowly up to a face we must correctly assume is Holmes'. The next scene is a shot of the Mudlarks out of Dickens, sloshing around in the black mud of the Thames, clouded by industrial smoke, and finding a woman's dead body amid the muck.
Thereafter the pattern becomes more familiar. Holmes shoots up once, but it's immediately after he reaches a dead end, is waiting for evidence to appear, and advises Watson that we must "possess our souls in patience." I liked it. The budget must have been sizable. The appointments are high end and the wardrobe is lavish. But the story, while simple enough in outline, involved some complicated goings on among the aristos and there were times when I couldn't attach the names to the correct figures. I had no trouble with Rachel Hurd-Wood as the thirteen-year-old kidnapee though. (Wow.) Helen McRory as the aristocrat-in-chief gives a masterful performance a s a cold, self-contained, half-mad bitch. And Michael Fassbender is outstanding as the icy footman.
Yes, it's a serial killer movie but it doesn't seem like one. Conan-Doyle could have written most of this. And the detective could have been no one but Holmes -- not Philo Vance or Nero Wolfe or Charlie Chan.
Of course Rupert Everett is neither Basil Rathbone or Jeremy Brett, but at least he's tall. The character as written more or less fits Conan-Doyle's image except at the beginning, when Holmes insults Watson and tries to get rid of him. A bit too abrasive there. And Everett's default expression seems to be a sneer.
Nevertheless, all the most enjoyable aspects of the Holmes tales are present in this pastiche. True, the opening scene is a little gloomy. An opium den in London. A Chinese man is seen lighting the rolls of dope in the bowl of a pipe and the camera pans slowly up to a face we must correctly assume is Holmes'. The next scene is a shot of the Mudlarks out of Dickens, sloshing around in the black mud of the Thames, clouded by industrial smoke, and finding a woman's dead body amid the muck.
Thereafter the pattern becomes more familiar. Holmes shoots up once, but it's immediately after he reaches a dead end, is waiting for evidence to appear, and advises Watson that we must "possess our souls in patience." I liked it. The budget must have been sizable. The appointments are high end and the wardrobe is lavish. But the story, while simple enough in outline, involved some complicated goings on among the aristos and there were times when I couldn't attach the names to the correct figures. I had no trouble with Rachel Hurd-Wood as the thirteen-year-old kidnapee though. (Wow.) Helen McRory as the aristocrat-in-chief gives a masterful performance a s a cold, self-contained, half-mad bitch. And Michael Fassbender is outstanding as the icy footman.
Yes, it's a serial killer movie but it doesn't seem like one. Conan-Doyle could have written most of this. And the detective could have been no one but Holmes -- not Philo Vance or Nero Wolfe or Charlie Chan.