The Adventure of the Steampunk Franchise
Dec. 27th, 2009 05:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sebastienneA long-needed break. Lots of bike paraphernalia from the family, so I hope that I didn't write Cyndi off by slamming into sheet ice on her last week. (Yes, bloody stupid of me. But I have the most incredible bruise!)
Guy Ritchie's Sherlock Holmes. I don't know what I went in expecting, exactly, but I came out with a huge impossible grin on my face.
It was big, it was blousy, it was just as sensational as Conan Doyle would have been to his audience. Some of the trademark deduction was a little weak, but it was compelling. No, Downey Jr. was not Jeremy Brett, nor could he ever be, but within fifteen minutes I had forgotten to think about that fact. I believed in him. I wanted him to be weirder, of course I did, and darker and more manipulative and more like an impossible cross between Vetinari and Withnail; but that's because my mental image of Holmes is the most incredible man who never lived. In fact, it is possible that Downey Jr. came as close to this image as Brett, just from a different angle. Is this heresy?
Law's Watson was engaging; no stooge he, no mere Boswell. The relationship between the two men was exceptionally well painted, and I don't just say this as a slasher - there was so much more to it than the sexual tension. Their mutual understanding and understatement was simply delightful, their bickering more so.
Setting up Moriarty as some sort of Bad Batman for possible sequels was a masterstroke; I very much look forward to his army of remote control robots - I forsee this becoming increasingly steampunk. A steampunk hero, using brains to overcome brawn, (yes, ok, I did find all the fight scenes tedious, even with the beautiful split-second deductions and steampunk gadgetry).
The film gains points for painting the British Empire as unequivocally evil; loses them again for doing this only by pointing out how it threatens the US. It gains points for Irene Adler's costumes (that dress! that coat! that waistcoat! those trousers!), and for not giving her and Holmes a movie-leads ending snog. I could and should quibble about the film's geography, but I'm willing to accept that it's set in the same Victorian London as Sweeney Todd.
Guy Ritchie's Sherlock Holmes. I don't know what I went in expecting, exactly, but I came out with a huge impossible grin on my face.
It was big, it was blousy, it was just as sensational as Conan Doyle would have been to his audience. Some of the trademark deduction was a little weak, but it was compelling. No, Downey Jr. was not Jeremy Brett, nor could he ever be, but within fifteen minutes I had forgotten to think about that fact. I believed in him. I wanted him to be weirder, of course I did, and darker and more manipulative and more like an impossible cross between Vetinari and Withnail; but that's because my mental image of Holmes is the most incredible man who never lived. In fact, it is possible that Downey Jr. came as close to this image as Brett, just from a different angle. Is this heresy?
Law's Watson was engaging; no stooge he, no mere Boswell. The relationship between the two men was exceptionally well painted, and I don't just say this as a slasher - there was so much more to it than the sexual tension. Their mutual understanding and understatement was simply delightful, their bickering more so.
Setting up Moriarty as some sort of Bad Batman for possible sequels was a masterstroke; I very much look forward to his army of remote control robots - I forsee this becoming increasingly steampunk. A steampunk hero, using brains to overcome brawn, (yes, ok, I did find all the fight scenes tedious, even with the beautiful split-second deductions and steampunk gadgetry).
The film gains points for painting the British Empire as unequivocally evil; loses them again for doing this only by pointing out how it threatens the US. It gains points for Irene Adler's costumes (that dress! that coat! that waistcoat! those trousers!), and for not giving her and Holmes a movie-leads ending snog. I could and should quibble about the film's geography, but I'm willing to accept that it's set in the same Victorian London as Sweeney Todd.
