A Wildly Adventerous 'Sherlock'

by Brett Parker

You can imagine Sherlock Holmes purists being enraged by the latest cinematic incarnation of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's beloved hero and perhaps they have good reason to be. Hollywood producers have blown the doors off the character's Britannia formalities and traditions in trying to display him as the latest Blockbuster action hero. The latest Holmes tale is pumped up with CGI-effects, elaborate actions sequences, and movie stars who physically betray the traditional look of the characters. To literary enthusiasts, this truly could be a nightmare.

I'm happy to report that the new Sherlock Holmes is far from being a train wreck and is one of the most thrilling adventure films of the year. Here is a big-budget action vehicle where the effects shots are technically marvelous and the action scenes are dazzlingly creative. And even though the great detective is wildly re-imagined to swim Hollywood waters, a surprising justice is done to the founding ideals of the character and even pushes him to new and brilliant depths. The film brings a clever attention to the Holmes legend, not only creating a thrill-a-minute rollercoaster ride but an ingenious detective story as well.

The film opens with a more athletic and scrappy Sherlock Holmes (Robert Downey, JR.) racing through the streets of London. He has the appearance of a shabby bohemian yet the fighting skills of a super ninja. Joining him is his proper-looking sidekick Watson (Jude Law) who is more reserved than Holmes, but also possesses a strong intellect, taste for adventure, and set of fighting techniques. The two are attempting to stop a shadowy villain named Blackwood (Mark Strong) from carrying out a dark arts ritual of murder. Blackwood is a spooky magician who carries out crimes shrouded in haunting spells. After fighting off henchmen and devising a method to disarm him, Holmes captures Blackwood and he is jailed by Scotland Yard. Another case solved by the brilliant Holmes.

Time passes and Holmes discovers there are hardly any elaborate cases left to solve. He spends his days conducting wacky experiments in his messy quarters at 221B Baker Street and wrestling with the fact that Watson plans to leave his detective days behind him to settle down with a good woman named Mary (Kelly Reily). They are called back into action, however, the day when it is revealed that the deceased Blackwood may have risen from his grave and plots to destroy all of England. A far-fetched theory, one Holmes promises to get to the bottom of! By taking on the case, Holmes and Watson get caught up in a breathtaking adventure in which the duo faces off with intimidating henchman, deadly traps, government conspiracies, and an American thief named Irene Adler (Rachel McAdams) who may not only be part of Blackwood's elaborate plot but may also be the only woman who has ever touched the heart of Sherlock Holmes.

So the new (and considerably improved) Holmes is a master brawler, a heavy boozer, a wacky bohemian, and a quick-thinking man of action. If you were to look into Conan Doyle's original tales, you'll find these traits to not be entirely betraying of Holmes' persona. It makes sense that a man of Holmes' skills and experience would have such an outsized arsenal of talents and quirks. Surely a man of such studied intelligence would have a fine knowledge of self-defense tactics. A man of his grand intellect could surely be hopelessly wrapped in an array of eccentric habits. Director Guy Ritchie (Snatch, Rocknrolla) has a gifted eye for colorful eccentrics who inhabit a slapstick cockney underworld of crime. It's both logical and liberating to find Holmes in such a zany criminal landscape, for a great crime solver would have to immerse himself within the criminal community to understand their motives better.

When finding an actor to play the legendary detective, the last actor you'd probably think of is the American Robert Downey, Jr. Yet his colorful tics and breathless musings fit wonderfully within the Holmes persona. Like some of his more memorable performances, Downey makes his Holmes an energetic quirkster who grows weary of the simpletons around him. It seems like only Downey can employ his sharp wit and erratic nature to make his Holmes both time-honoring and refreshingly original at the same time. This is strongly demonstrated in a fascinating sequence where Holmes can't help but analyze a roomful of people and Watson's fiance at a fancy restaurant.

With his height and proper British demeanor, you'd almost expect Jude Law to play Holmes. Well here he is as trusty sidekick Watson, his strong-headed and adventurous poise wildly contradicting the pudgy oaf we've come to expect from this character. Nonetheless, we welcome the performance with open arms. Both Downey and Law have an unlikely and winning chemistry together. One of the script's pleasures is the cheerful acknowledgement of the famous duo's homoerotic tendencies. Downey and Law knowingly bicker like an old married couple, wearing timeless suspicions about the characters right on their sleeves. It makes for a hilarious bromance, maybe even a tad touching.

The film is wall-to-wall with action yet Ritchie labors to keep things visually creative and within the excitement of Holmes' crime solving. A brilliant stroke occurs when we see Holmes intellectually mapping out fighting methods to attack his enemies with. There's a dazzling slow-motion sequence where Holmes tries to dodge a series of deadly explosions. The film's exciting climax treats us to both a dazzling fight sequence atop the under-construction Tower Bridge and Holmes' brilliant summary of the entire case. All of these sequences are tied together by the marvelously Victorian-tinged musical score by Hans Zimmer, a score that truly deserves an Oscar nomination.

For all its creative strokes, Sherlock Holmes is still, essentially, a Hollywood thrill ride. Certain action sequences are prolonged for filler as the plot steams relentlessly towards an obvious sequel set-up. But the film doesn't insult the foundation of Conan Doyle's creation. For the film truly comes alive when it connects strongly and creatively with the traditions of the Sherlock Holmes myth. The original stories are often regarded as gems of simple pleasures, and the same can be said of this film.

'Nine': Misguided Love Letter to Fellini

by Brett Parker

Nine is a musical that plays all the notes but never gets a firm grasp on the music. The material itself is based on Federico Fellini's 8 1/2, one of the greatest films ever made, although this adaptation fails to realize what made the earlier film so significant. It doesn't disrespect the earlier material, or even really try to outdo it, but it never really brings anything substantial to the table. Not even the addition of show tunes, cheerfully mediocre at best, adds anything to the aesthetic value of the film. It's a testament to the art of Federico Fellini that the flash and pizazz of this film, obviously inspired by his talents, may just be enough to salvage this enterprise.

Nine is a big screen adaptation of a 1982 Broadway musical by Arthur Kopit and Maury Yeston that, in itself, reimagined Fellini's 8 1/2 for the stage. The story follows a famous Italian filmmaker named Guido Contini (Daniel Day-Lewis) at a crisis in his life. He has no idea what his ninth film is to be about, although anxious producers push forward relentlessly with this unknown project. All he really knows about it is the title ("Italia") and that it will star his actress muse, Claudia Jenssen (Nicole Kidman).

While wrestling with ideas for this troubled film, Guido also must deal with the complexities of all the females in his life. His wife Luisa (Marion Cotillard) is fed up with his lying and womanizing, his mistress Carla (Penelope Cruz) grows an unhealthy love for him, a flirty journalist named Stephanie (Kate Hudson) dispenses shallow interpretations of his films. Always looming in his memory is the ghost of his Mamma (Sophia Loren) and Saraghina (Fergie), a whore from his childhood who represents his guilt towards women.

8 1/2 is at once both a vivid and surreal masterpiece regarding filmmaking and womanizing. It presented a wonderfully sympathetic Marcello Mastroianni in the role of Guido, who agonized helplessly over the realization that his film career and love life were weighing down heavily on each other. The film itself is a masterstroke of self-reflexivity, as Fellini used his conflicts and frustrations with the project as an active aspect of the plot. The hidden theme within the film is finding something real in something superficial, whether it be truth within filmmaking or love within womanizing.

Nine more or less pretends to represent the same thing, but it never really penetrates beneath the superficial. It's all surface, making clunky efforts to unearth the thoughtful meditations Fellini displayed so wonderfully and effortlessly. Director Rob Marshall (Chicago) plays everything for a Stanley Donen-like gloss and this leaves scenes of spiritual anguish and romantic brusings looking plastic. Perhaps if Marshall employed Fellini's tactic for allowing free-flowing human drama to infuse a grand premise, the film would be more grabbing. Nine is only Marshall's third film as a feature director, so maybe he needed five more on his resume before he could understand Fellini's point-of-view on this material.

Perhaps this musical is tough to engage because you really don't know what to make of Day-Lewis' Guido. Of course Mastroianni in the original role was unforgettable, for he was one of the most masculine, stylish, and natural actors in cinematic history. So wonderfully laid-back and exquisitely realized was his performance that it seems like no one can fill his shoes. Day-Lewis, the great multi-Oscar winning method actor, is completely game for the challenge. He has a notable singing voice and a surprisingly-convincing Italian accent, yet we never feel a strong sense of anguish and exhaustion from him. He makes Guido a tad too bouncy and eccentric, while Guido is essentially a man too weary and worn-out to be such things anymore. It's amusing to watch a skilled method actor labor extensively to pull off something Mastroianni did so effortlessly.

It's such a grand disappointment to me that Javier Bardem, the original choice to play Guido, pulled out of the role in pre-production. Marshall had him selected to play Guido, but Bardem wanted to take some time off to recover from exhaustion (having just made the award rounds for No Country for Old Men). I think the Oscar-Winner would've scored an absolute touchdown. His performance in Vicky Cristina Barcelona is proof alone that Bardem has what it takes to be a modern day Mastroianni, for he masterfully displayed the same kind of casual masculinity and passionate romantic appetites. I suspect its a great loss to modern cinema that we'll never see Bardem's Guido.

I did, in fact, try to absorb this movie in its own right as a musical, seeing if I would still enjoy it had I never seen 8 1/2. In doing this, I run into the problem that the musical numbers are not very particularly good. They mostly sound like watered-down generic show tunes, failing to excite or resonate (not even "Cinema Italiano" an original tune created to spice up the soundtrack, fails to stir things up). "Be Italian" is the only song that can easily be evoked in the memory, and even that one never reaches it's fullest potential. A great show tune isn't bound by plot and generics but can stand on its own with a distinct energy and rhythm (Dreamgirls delivered such great songs in waves).

If there's one area in which Nine outdoes 8 1/2, it's in the women. For the female characters, Fellini employed undeniable beauties of their era, but Marshall dishes out glamour goddesses that can melt any man's heart. The actresses here hit on full full sexiness yet never skewer their character's inner-complexities. You'll turn to absolute putty watching Cruz perform "A Call From the Vatican" or Fergie doing "Be Italian," both in skimpy attire. Cotillard is both simultaneously lovely and heartbreaking while Hudson cannily evokes the ideal of 1960s Superblonde glam.

So the soundtrack is a dud and the deeper themes meander hopelessly, yet I strangely find myself recommending the film. I think I was seduced not only by the women, but also the Italian exoticness, the immaculate styles, and the film world musings. It's hard for me to resist that packs such traits in even the shakiest of packages. Perhaps I'm just excited to see a contemporary film being so proudly and openly Felliniesque. A misguided love letter to Fellini is better than no love letter at all, I think.

So the question remains: is this movie for you? If you're a fan of Fellini and 8 1/2, then you'll find it to be a slightly-amusing cartoon. If you're a fan of Broadway musicals, then these bland show tunes just might work for you. If you're a fan of gorgeous women, exotic locations, and the world of cinema, then you certainly won't be bored. I wasn't bored here, but I wasn't elevated either.