Movie Review: Sherlock Holmes

Happy new year everyone. I've been off enjoying my break, so haven't been posting anything since then. Wish my break was longer, but alas... all good things must come to an end.

During the break, I watched Sherlock Holmes with a couple of friends. As we all probably know, Sherlock Holmes is a famous English detective novel. Holmes is famous for his intellectual prowess, and his uncanny ability to solve the most difficult cases, and this has been made into a modernised movie format.

The plot is based around 'dark magic' supposedly being practiced by a characted named Lord Blackwood. At the very beginning of the movie, Holmes and Dr Watson (Holmes' sidekick and best friend) stop a dark ritual, which was going to involve a human sacrifice. The ritual was being commited by Lord Blackwood, and he is arrested. Blackwood is executed 3 months later, but apparently arises from the dead. Afterwards, many murders are commited and its up to Holmes to find out what really happened.

I personally really enjoyed the mystery involved in the film, which of course is very well explained later on, and all these little things that you see throughout the film suddenly make sense. I always like these kinds of movies/tv shows/animes that make use of things that stimulate the mind, and are just generally very clever. I did find it a little odd that Dr Watson was a very capable fighter. I could understand that Holmes, being a detective... would be a good fighter, but I was definitely not expecting Watson to be one as well. However, I read into it a bit more, and Watson is supposed to be a war veteran, so in hindsight it wasn't so bad. It did amuse me when Watson would have people in a headlock and he'll say "don't worry, I'm a doctor."

Despite it being based on the Shelock Holmes novels, there is an obvious absence of the cliche "elementary, my dear Watson." My friend also commented that it would've been awesome if they had added "no shit Sherlock" to the script as well. But alas... maybe in a sequel =P

The main characters of the movie are;

Sherlock Holmes - obviously. He is a genius, and has exceptional deductive capabilities. He takes into account everything, even the littlest of things, and work out things about a person, or deduce what happened at a particular scene. He is also a very skilled fighter, and its quite awesome to see him combine the 2 skills. Basically what he'll do is mentally visualise his plan of attack, and list them step by step. Then he'll execute it perfectly in exactly how he previously described. I find it a clever way of explaining what is actually going on in a fight.

Dr Watson - supposed to be a sidekick for Holmes, but in the movie they seem more like colleagues and good friends. He is of course a doctor, and was present at Blackhorn's execution to confirm his death. While Holmes is quite laid back, Watson is more of a serious character.

Irene Adler - Holmes' past love interest, who is the only person to have outwitted Holmes. She herself is quite intelligent and cunning. She's played by Rachel McAdams, who some people will remember as Regina George in Mean Girls. When I first saw her, I felt like I know who she was but couldn't put a name to her face. I didn't realise till later, that it was Rachel McAdams (I didn't look at the cast before I watched the movie)... she looks quite different without the blonde hair.

Lord Blackwood - as previously mentioned, he is involved in the practice of black magic, and he is using that to take over Britain.


Rating - 8.5/10. I thoroughly enjoyed the movie, and I think its definitely worth checking out, if you haven't already. It has good humour, and some of the fight scenes are quite interesting. The best thing is the element of mystery and then hearing the explanation of what everything meant at the end. I also really liked the background music and I think its quite fitting to the setting of the movie. The movie is suitable for all audiences, but be prepared to keep up with the movie, as Holmes can speak quite fast sometimes.