Today, I'm breaking with tradition and have decided to write about a movie before I've seen it. Crazy. I know. There is a reason though, promise. I feel with a movie with this much anticipation and expectation on my end, it's imperative to set up where I'm coming from beforehand - lest my opinion be taken less seriously (who out there actually takes my opinion seriously?). Back when director Guy Ritchie hit the US scene he completely wowed us with "Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels" and "Snatch". Both films were fun, quick, clever and so...un-American and distinctly British. We loved the stories, the characters, the overall absurdity. Then...he made "Swept Away". Oh. My. God. What a travesty of a movie. Those of us who know what the man is capable of were pretty depressed about that. I mean really...what happened? There have been a couple drops in the pan since then but somewhere along the way, he got on board to direct "Sherlock Holmes" with the star power of Robert Downey, Jr. as Holmes and Jude Law as Holmes' right hand man - Watson. Now, Holmes is a classic detective character from literature adored by many. Ritchie, please don't muck this up. Also - can Downey, Jr pull off a true Brit? I'm expecting action, comedy, and cleverness - all the usual tricks. Hopes are high. Bring it on!
Post-movie:
Alright. That was fun. Really really really fun. It looked like a storybook illustration at times. It had subtle homages to Hitchcock's genius and Ritchie's own films. It delivered all the wit and quickness that I hoped it would. More than all of that, it was the natural progression of some of Ritchie's old bag of tricks: speed ramps/slo mo, whipping delivery of the lines, comradery, fantastic sound design, and most especially brilliant storytelling techniques - all taken to the next level. As in his early works, virtually everything is a puzzle, a mystery - just waiting to be discovered and unraveled - how appropriate for a film about a detective. Robert Downey, Jr is great as Holmes and together with Jude Law - it's double trouble. They make a great team.
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