When I first heard about this, my thought was, “Oh, man, they’re going to screw up Holmes something awful!” But after seeing the trailer, I’m not so sure. It actually looks pretty good, for the most part. And I’m a huge Holmes fan. Not sure about the very last scene in the trailer (that might be going a bit far) but I’m confident that Downey can pull this off.
Anybody else think so?
Well, I like Downey Jr. and I like Holmes, so I’ll see it. But I remain skeptical.
Explosions? Finally, a Holmes my wife can enjoy!
I hope this isn’t why Madonna left Guy Ritchie!
Heh. You know, a year ago I would’ve hated these trailers. However, a few months ago I started actually reading the original Holmes stories, and realized that he’s a physically capable man, a good fighter, and while I can’t see him going the seduction-for-sex route (he was a product of victorian morals), Watson, on more than one occasion, mentioned that he did have a great facility with women (usually chatting them up to get juicy gossip). So, in that sense, I’m definately looking forward to seeing what they do with it. As a caveat, though, I’m hoping the supernatural stuff turns out to be Old Man Withers from the haunted amusement park, as Holmes was pretty much always a denier of the supernatural, and correctly so in his mysteries.
Sherlock Holmes? Robert Downey Jr.? There’s almost no way I’m not going to see this movie. And the trailer looks Fun with a capital F. Like ArrMatey!, I’m not bothered by the action stuff. Holmes could handle himself pretty well. But I am also concerned about the appearance of supernatural elements. I’ve nothing against supernatural thrillers per se, but there are plenty of those in literature already. Why screw with one of the great skeptics?
I didn’t see anything in the trailer that indicates that he’s a great seducer. Maybe that impression comes from elsewhere?
As a trailer, it’s quite awful.
As a movie, the pros (primarily the cast) and the cons (the director, the resemblence to other failed revamps) are a wash, so I’ll probably see it out of morbid curiosity, unless the reviews are truly horrible. I hope not.
Though the fact that the movie it currently most reminds me of is Wild Wild West does not encourage me.
I very much hope so, too. Sherlock Holmes only works in a rational universe – once you admit the supernatural, there is no way to eliminate the impossible.
Jude Law as John Watson. Ooookaaaay . . .
If you read through the stories, the common theme is that there’s something which sounds implausible happening, some item that seems cursed, or evil ghosts about, but in the end it ends up having a perfectly reasonable, plausible explanation.
That looks rather entertaining.
I don’t know about that… In The Hound of the Baskervilles, he certainly looks for (and eventually finds) a mundane explanation, but he also seems to leave open the possibility that the explanation might not be mundane.
Eh, not a fan of the trailer; it’s cut too much like the trailer for a Michael Bay movie. I much prefer the trailers where you at least learn SOMETHING about the movie. You can’t really blame Guy Ritchie for that, though. It’s not his fault. The movies he made after Snatch WERE largely his fault though so I’m skeptical. Downey is on a hot streak and Jude Law makes a great piece of furniture so who really knows.
Still, I always cheer for a movie to be good and maybe a genre change is just what Guy Ritchie needs. I’ll be crossing my fingers.
I was always impressed by Doyle’s ability to keep his Holmes completely rational, despite Doyles’ own leanings towards Spiritualism and the like. He certainly did write stories with supernatural elements (I have two collections of these), and he could get downright preachy (he ruined Professor Challenger with Spiritualism in The Land of Mist, but he created a new character for his most maudlin supernatural story. Read – if you dare – The Maracot Deep), but he always tried to keep Holmes free of any truly supernatural taint – witness not only The Hound of the Baskervilles (mentioned previously), but also The Adventure of the Sussex Vampire, and other potentially weird stories in which the solution is completely rational.
Of course, Holmes pastiches feel no need to keep up that rationality, so we’ve had Holmes meeting Dracula on several occasions. Kay van Ash’s Ten Years Beyond Baker Street gives us a Fu Manchu with occult powers, and there are countless examples of other cases . Far too numerous to go into.
This trailer reminds me of Anno Dracula, with its talk of folks rising from the dead and the World changing. I haven’t read the book yet, or its sequels.
According to Wikipedia and imdb, the movie is based on Lionel Wigram’s unpublished Sherlock Holmes comic, which pits Holmes against a sort of Aleister Crowley. It looks interesting more for his take on the Holmes character as a Bohemian type, rather than on the plot. I suspect that they might make something interestiong of Holmes, which completely screwing up Doyle’s stories and Holmes’ ratiocination.
If you had stuck around to the end of the trailer, you would have noticed it said that.
It looks entertaining, in a double-O-Holmes kind of way.
I like Robert Downey Jr.
Don’t think I will stand in line on Christmas Day to see it, but most likely will go see it sometime over the holidays…geez, thinking of Christmas already…how depressing…
My experience lately with Christmas-released movies is: they suck.
Regardless of that, I’ll still see it.
It looks a lot like The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, which I liked.
what?
