Sherlock Holmes (Ritchie) and Sherlock (BBC)—bad and good

Rating: 1/10 (22 December 2010)

I recently finally caught up with Guy Ritchie's Sherlock Holmes; very much at the same time, I saw the BBC's 21st century reboot of Holmes. They span the extremes—dreadful to astonishingly, and unexpectedly, wonderful.
Starting with the ridiculous—Guy Ritchie's film is, frankly, dreadful in almost every way. The steampunk vision of Victorian London is visually striking, but far from original, and it gets tiresome and overly gloomy. The plot is a cross between second-tier Conan Doyle and second-tier Hammer horror. The film is full of special effects and set pieces—in particular, a boxing match, a bout in a shipyard with a 19th century Oddjob, and a fight between Holmes and the villain on top of a half-completed Tower Bridge. The first is mere vulgar sensationalism; the second two, obvious borrowings from Bond films.
In fact, much of the film is bricolage from better work, be it Bond films, or Hammer films, or earlier Holmes films. There is enough holes in the plot to drive a locomotive through. For instance, Holmes gets to Tower Bridge from a location near the Houses of Parliament in a matter of moments—in reality, Tower Bridge is several miles away from Parliament. The only bright spot is Jude Law as Watson—a performance that is authentic to the character.
And, ultimately, authenticity is the biggest problem. For a Holmes film to work, it does not have to be a faithful reproduction of one of the 60 original stories—the route generally followed by the Thames TV series with Jeremy Brett. To name only a few, Wilder's The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes, The Seven Percent Solution, and most of Basil Rathbone's films have little if any connections with the original stories, and yet they are full of the right atmosphere and character. The biggest problem is Robert Downey Jr.—a wonderful actor whose work I generally admire, but who is all wrong in the part of Holmes. Part of the problem is the dreadful script. Part of the problem is that Downey plays Holmes as too neurotic, too scruffy, and too unpleasant. A scene where Holmes insults Mary Morston (Kelly Reilly), Watson's fiancée, is simply out of character.
There is another dimension, which is perhaps a bit refined—but nevertheless significant to a core portion of the audience. Holmes is the best known fictional character in English literature—possibly the best known fictional character in all of world literature. The Holmes stories have attracted exegesis worthy of a Biblical text, and even those who are not of fanatical disposition (like me) are sensitive to contradictions. To name only two—Holmes at one point states that he has never met Mary, which (chronologically in the books) is untrue, and much of what passes between Irene Adler and Holmes does not square with the only story in which she appears, A Scandal in Bohemia.
These points would be trivial, if the overall quality of script and characterization were right. They are not. Gregory, the movie cat, whose judgment is infallible, just snorted with disgust and left the room early on. I wish that I had. Don't waste your time.
As a long-time Holmes enthusiast, I was not prepared to like the BBC Sherlock. The notion of updating Holmes to the 21st century sounded like a ghastly idea. But this new series—three episodes to date, and I hope many more to come—is flat out wonderful.
The casting is spot on. The critical characters are of course Holmes and Watson. Benedict Cumberbatch proves a nearly perfect Holmes—cerebrotonic, neurasthenic, unnervingly intelligent—and Martin Freeman, as an Afghan war veteran (a clever reference back to the originals) is a perfect down to earth foil, and, refreshingly, not played as a dolt. The first of the 3 films, A Study in Pink, is both a cheeky reference to the first Holmes story (A Study in Scarlet) and an intriguing psychological variation on the locked room mystery.
Frankly, as urgently as I would suggest that the reader avoid Ritchie's Sherlock, I would suggest watching the BBC's Sherlock. It's one of the most refreshing things I have seen in some time. The atmosphere is right, the characterization is right, and the concept is original.