There are many types of hype that gets put out there in the world these days. There's good hype, bad hype, hype about hype and general fervent craziness over something. Over the past two or three weekends I got a chance to see a few movies that all bought a ticket to ride they hype train.
Normally I reserve this space for gaming stories, but as you all know sometimes I like to change course and talk about other stuff, mainly movies as they are my 2nd great passion. This review will be split into a few pieces so that I can formally review each of the movies, without stunting them in some form. The three movies in question are Sherlock Holmes, Avatar and The Hangover (a little late but whatever). First stop on our journey, Sherlock Holmes! PS these will be spoiler free so don't worry, read on!
I talked a bit about Holmes a few posts ago and talked about how excited I was for this movie. In relation to the title of this post, the hype and talk behind this movie wasn't HUGE, but it was there. I mean first you have Robert Downey Jr. who is riding high right now with Iron Man and Tropic Thunder boosting him back into huge fame and now with Iron Man 2 coming out in May, plus a few other good movies up his sleeve, hes rising fast to the top once again. You have a huge leading man, a great supporting cast of Jude Law and Rachel McAdams, as well as Guy Riche (famous for the awesome London gangster trilogy that is Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, Snatch and RocknRolla). To me at least that's already a winning combo. With the setting of the story in the dark, seedy areas of London, we get a MUCH different look at the world of Sherlock Holmes.
Again in keeping with the whole spoiler free deal, I won't go into to much detail about plot, but this one seemed to have a nice old school Holmes feel to it. Now I say that in somewhat ignorance because as I write this I haven't actually seen any Holmes movies. Fail on my part. Either way the first complaint I heard about this movie was that it wasn't like the older Holmes movies. The trailers show you that Holmes is a man of action, relying less on intellect and more on beating the ever living crap out of people. First assumptions of this couldn't be further from the truth. Watching Holmes break down something like a fight or figuring out where he is or who something was, were some of the biggest highlights of the movie for me. Yes, Downey plays Holmes as a cocky, brash, some what crazy shoot first and ask questions later character, but at the same time, can switch on a dime and be as smart as the character that many people have grown to love.
Jude Law was awesome as Dr. Watson. While he was the more straight laced, think first, he played the perfect foil for Holmes. The dynamic between the two characters worked perfectly. The banter and teamwork came so natural to the two actors that you could swear they have been working together for years and knew each others beats and rhythms. I guess that comes from having two top class actors playing leading roles in your movie. The plot itself was really cool, a good mix of mystery, supernatural occurrences and a villain trying to take over the world. Mark Strong played Lord Blackwood, a man with what many believed to be powers rooted in the occult trying to take over London and bring a new reign to power. Again I am keeping this as spoiler free as I can so I can't really go into much more detail other than I really enjoyed the story. The pacing kept me hooked, the beats worked perfectly with the story going from a strong action sequence to great bits of mystery solving and deduction to move to plot, right back into action. The movie had a fair bit of comedy too, mainly coming from Holmes interactions with Watson, but the biggest laughs and stupid wide grin that came from me were the simple scenes of Holmes just figuring things out. Again I wish I could say more, but without giving anything away (mainly because I want everyone to go see the movie for themselves) that is all I have for now.
I HIGHLY recommend seeing this movie, while you don't have to rush out to theaters to see it (even though I would) I strongly urge watching it when the DVD/BD drops in the coming months. Tomorrow we pick up steam on the hype train as we roll into our next station: Avatar!
Thanks for reading, welcome to 2010!
- Nerdsbeware out
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