Sherlock Holmes

Jude Law and Robert Downey as Dr John Watson and Sherlock Holmes

Well, following on from the success of me going on my own to the cinema to see 'It's complicated' with Meryl Streep I decided to 'give it another go'. But the repeat performance wasn't quite so good, so I realised clearly then, that it was the film, not the company (or lack of!).

So, anyway, I went to see the new film 'Sherlock Holmes' which is directed by Guy Ritchie and stars Mark Strong, Robert Downey, Jude Law and Rachel Adams. The screenplay was written by Michael Robert Johnson, Anthony Peckham and Simon Kinberg, and was developed from an original story by Lionel Wigram and Michael Robert Johnson. And of course it was based on the characters from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's stories. I really like Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories - indeed, at one point in my life, a read the whole compendium of them. So, I was quite hopeful about the film - although it has to be said that these type of things don't always work.

Anyway, the film was OK. The plot was interesting - about a serial killer, called Lord Blackwood (played by Mark Strong) who claims that he is killing people by black magic. Having then been found guilty of murder and hung, he mysteriously rises from the dead! He was then all set to blow up the Houses of Parliament - to get rid of the MPs and the powerhouse in this way, so that he could 'take over'. But of course, Sherlock Holmes comes to the rescue and stops it all. Sherlock Holmes uses his power of logic and deduction to work out that the murders were being done by tricks and not by black magic - this includes tying a clever knot in the noose so that Lord Blackwood did not die when he was hung!

The atmosphere in the film was powerful and quite convincing and the plot was good, but I think where the film fell down was in terms of action - there was too much of it. Also, there was the impossibility of easily explaining in a film just how all those magical tricks were performed - the message can be conveyed much more powerfully and effectively in a book, I think.

Having said all this, it is a film that is quite worth seeing, if one has a free afternoon or evening!