I prefer Loren D. Estleman’s Sherlock Holmes Vs. Dracula: Or the Adventure of the Sanguinary Count myself. But there are plenty to choose from.
Watching the available trailers and stuff, I was impressed with Law not so much with Downey Jr.
Personal taste, I suppose.
It seems as if Downey is the go-to guy to play “smart and coked to the gills”, so I’m not surprised to see him as Holmes. It looks very enjoyable.
Ahhh, the Holmes/Watson slash fic is gonna explode.
I wonder if Holmes is gonna do any, y’know … brainwork? I know you can’t film thinking, and this is a trailer that’s going for that “popcorny fun” angle, but wow, there’s a lot of varied action scenes in this tiny clip. Then again, if this is based on a comic, that probably makes sense. Gonna take a lot for me to get Jeremy Brett outta my head, though. [del]Or even Hugh Laurie.[/del]
Downey seems a little too manic and cheerful for the Holmes I recall from the stories. I’m not surprised about Law’s Watson – the image of Nigel Bruce’s older, pudgier fuddy-duddy is not drawn from the canon – but I am surprised at how yummy he is with a mustache. And Mark Strong’s in it too? Holy cow. The H/W slash is gonna have some competition, I can tell you that!
/choie looks at the preview again. Oh, Rachel McAdams is in it too. That’s nice. 
I was impressed by Rachel McAdams, but possibly not for the same reasons.
thwartme
The trailer makes it look like just another run of the mill action/adventure flick that bears little resemblance to the Sherlock Holmes stories apart from the character names. Even more frustratingly, Downey Jr. doesn’t look like Holmes at all. It’ll make money but the actors aren’t going to do anything special with the characters, and unless the writing is just spectacular it’ll be a forgettable experience. Hopefully the trailer misrepresented it, Downey Jr. defies my expectations and redefines his character, and it isn’t just a boring action movie.
Incidentally, I found it interesting that Jude Law was cast as Watson, as one of his earliest roles was a bit part in one of the dramatizations where Jeremy Brett starred (fantastically) as Holmes.
I don’t know. Of course, I can’t say much with so little information, but Law seems to be giving a personality to Watson, which has been a bit of a rarity in the history of Holmesian films. I felt that the last one playing Watson who really gave him a personality was Robert Dubal in the Seven Percent Solution.
Yes—at least, the trailer looks like the standard action/adventure trailer.
I fear that this film will be to Sherlock Holmes as I, Robot (the movie) was to Asimov’s book.
Really? I didn’t like Duvall’s portrayal at all, though in fairness I may have been distracted by his using one of the worst fake British accents since Dick Van Dyke’s mockney in Mary Poppins.
For me, that film was all about Alan Arkin’s endearing portrait of Freud, and Nicol Williamson’s underrated and intelligent if rather idiosyncratic Holmes.
I rather like Edward Hardwicke’s Watson. He’s not a fool like Bruce, but keeps a humble dignity throughout.
Having Watson be so much younger and more callow than Holmes, as Law comes across, seems more in line with the character of Captain Hastings in Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot mysteries. (Hastings was an obvious homage to the Watson sidekick role, but more useless and buffoonier, albeit more dashing as well. I doubt Law’s Watson will be anywhere as useless as a Hastings would be.)
I love Doyle’s Holmes stories…but this surely did not look like the Holmes I know from them. I may have to wait for the DVD. Holmes is not James Bond or Jack Bauer.
I will give you the bad accent, but I still feel he made him a real character.
I so agree with you on Alan Arkin’s portrayal of Freud. I do not agree with you on Williamson, however. I felt it was too hamy. I love(d) Williamson as an actor (I still feel he did the best ever Lenny in Of Mice and Men), but I think he missed here. Personal taste, of course.
For me between the two, the delightful incompetence of Bruce wins out. Yes, I know, it is complete opposition to my origional thought about Watson having a character, but it is just between these two in this case.
And regarding Hastings. I’m not sure anyone could capture him. Christie wrote him so many different ways. I always thought that she went to the cinema before beginning a new Poirot novel or short story and whoever was in the film that week she would drop in aspects of that character into Hastings. One story it would be Nigel Bruce, the next it would be Richard Donet, the next Errol Flynn. To this day I half expect to pick up a mystery and have Hastings talk like Gabby Hays.:eek:
What do you mean, just the character names? Didn’t you notice them quoting lines from the book?
There is one Holmes story that borders on science fiction and even horror, “The Creeping Man.” I was just watching the Jeremy Brett as Holmes episode last night and thinking how weird a story it is.
It’s the one where the elderly professor is engaged to marry a much younger woman, and tries to restore his virility by injecting money gland extract (which was a genuine line of experimental rejuvenation treatment at the time), but this poor man…
winds up crawling on all fours, climbing the ivy, and hooting like a gibbon. Not among the normal side-effects.
I have a vague memory that there is an H.P. Lovecraft story along similar lines, but haven’t been able to find it in the Lovecraft collections I have.
:: scribbles note on list ::
That’s one, Bmalion. You get three.
As Miss Mapp illustrates, Conan Doyle’s idea of a reasonable explanation may not always stand up to skeptical inquiry. For instance, the killer in “The Adventure of the Speckled Band” isa milk-drinking, rope-climbing, whistle-hearing snake.But at least he makes it an effort at rational explanation, rather than falling back on “spooks did it!”
Speaking of illustrations, I don’t care if Downey “looks like” Sherlock Holmes or not. I’ve never understood why a close resemblance (in this case, to illustrations of a fictional character) is important in casting. If he’s male, Caucasian, fit, of normal height and somewhere in that expanse we call middle age, that should be good enough. (Sorry, an obese elderly female Asian dwarf would probably run into difficulties as a professional consulting detective in Victorian London.)
Saying the actors will bring nothing to the characters… Robert Downey Jr.? I suspect he’ll bring something. You may not like it, but it’ll be something.
There’s too much action in the trailer? Eh, it’s a trailer. There’s no good reason a Sherlock Holmes film shouldn’t have action in it, and why wouldn’t much of that action find its way into the trailer? They could have shown him reclining, eyes closed and fingers tented, for 20 minutes, but that probably wouldn’t sell many tickets.
He also did the notable Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Holmes
Elaborate, Sir, lest it become necessary that we choose sides.
Bmalion likes the LoEG movie, for Gandalf’s sake! That’s simple madness!
Robert Downey Jr. as a charming stimulant abuser with an off-the-charts IQ?
Yeah, I’m there.