# The new Sherlock Holmes film. Boxed spoilers. **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [December 22, 2009, 6:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-new-sherlock-holmes-film-boxed-spoilers/522176 "2009-12-22T06:28:06Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![GameHat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/ed655f/32.png) [@GameHat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GameHat)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2009, 3:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-new-sherlock-holmes-film-boxed-spoilers/522176/61 "2009-12-29T03:03:14Z")
eh, it’s not so bad. I saw it two nights ago with the parents (home for the holidays, hurrah) I can see how if you were a Sherlock Holmes aficionado you’d be a bit miffed. Hell, I have like the entire Sir Arthur Conan Doyle collection on my Kindle (it was all free). I’m not one. I’m vaguely aware of the Holmes mythos; the books haven’t aged in a way that I can enjoy them. I’ve gotten like 20% through most of the proper Sherlock Holmes books; I doubt I’ll finish. It’s just too old for me to properly enjoy. Not that I don’t see the appeal, it’s just like if you suddenly asked me to take an interest in music from the Civil War - sure, I can see the appeal and the historical value, I’m just not interested in hearing it. But I know enough to see when the movie takes…_ahem_…licenses. “Oh, I get it. Holmes is kinda like House in this flick.” (yes, yes, I know House was modeled on Holmes) “Except he’s a MMA fighter now too.” “…in the Matrix” “Also, he dresses like he’s homeless.” Dunno, I didn’t love the movie, but I enjoyed it well enough. It was a good popcorn flick. My dad (classic lover of “dumb, loud, violent films”) really liked it. My mom (sees every film that the critics love, including foreign) thought it was “OK” (probably boosted by the fact that she enjoyed the male leads). Like I said, I thought it was a decent popcorn flick. It won’t stay with me, but I don’t regret the ticket I bought. It was fun enough. ---
**Author:** ![ragerdude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/d07c76/32.png) [@ragerdude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ragerdude)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2009, 3:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-new-sherlock-holmes-film-boxed-spoilers/522176/62 "2009-12-29T03:05:18Z")
I thought it was good. Even though it wasn’t faithful to ACD, I knew that going in. It was a little confusing, though. I’ll have to see it again. ---
**Author:** ![Chimera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Chimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimera)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2009, 3:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-new-sherlock-holmes-film-boxed-spoilers/522176/63 "2009-12-29T03:17:40Z")
Saw it today with my 12 year old nephew. His verdict was “Ok. Not good, but ok.” I’d put it slighly above Ok, but below Good. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2009, 6:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-new-sherlock-holmes-film-boxed-spoilers/522176/64 "2009-12-29T06:38:53Z")
> [@GameHat](#): > > “Also, he dresses like he’s homeless.” > > . Not at all. Sure, he wears a super-ratty smoking jacket at home, but otherwise he shows style. ---
**Author:** ![Shirley\_Ujest](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/45deac/32.png) [@Shirley\_Ujest](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shirley_Ujest)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2009, 1:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-new-sherlock-holmes-film-boxed-spoilers/522176/65 "2009-12-29T13:12:30Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#): > > Yeah, it would be quite a hike to go via sewer from the Houses of Parliament to Tower Bridge, too. > > My teenage son and I saw the movie yesterday and really enjoyed it, although Brett’s Holmes will always be the authoritative one for me. This movie had a grittier London feel to it, and was obviously a much bigger-budgeted affair. The Holmes-Watson relationship was believable and nuanced. It was cool to hear Holmes’s voice-overs on his fighting techniques and deductive process. I appreciated the non-magical explanations for all of the bad guy’s tricks. And I actually liked McAdams as Adler. > > It struck me that Mark Strong, the actor who played Lord Blackwood, is a dead ringer for a younger Stanley Tucci: > > [http://www.aceshowbiz.com/images/still/sherlock\_holmes21.jpg](http://www.aceshowbiz.com/images/still/sherlock_holmes21.jpg) > [http://www.nndb.com/people/805/000043676/stanley-tucci.jpg](http://www.nndb.com/people/805/000043676/stanley-tucci.jpg) You are right. I sat there trying to figure out who Mark STrong looked like and all I could get was a Young Andy Garcia with an Accent that isn’t Latino. Stanley Tucci is spot on. ---
**Author:** ![Moirai](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/96bed5/32.png) [@Moirai](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moirai)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2009, 1:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-new-sherlock-holmes-film-boxed-spoilers/522176/66 "2009-12-29T13:46:23Z")
We took the kids to see it on Boxing Day & liked it. They were especially glad that there wasn’t a lot of kissing in it! 😃 My boys are 10 & 7. Hell, I enjoyed it. I am not a Holmes devotee so I am not tied to canon, plus I love RDJ. And such previews beforehand! **Iron Man 2** , **Wolfman** - loved it! ---
**Author:** ![melodyharmonius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/melodyharmonius/32/21310_2.png) [@melodyharmonius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/melodyharmonius)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2009, 1:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-new-sherlock-holmes-film-boxed-spoilers/522176/67 "2009-12-29T13:48:42Z")
> [@Moirai](#): > > Hell, I enjoyed it. I am not a Holmes devotee so I am not tied to canon, plus I love RDJ. And such previews beforehand! **Iron Man 2** , **Wolfman** - loved it! So jealous! I saw The Wolfman trailer, but they didn’t play the IM2. :rolleyes: \<– green with envy. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2009, 2:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-new-sherlock-holmes-film-boxed-spoilers/522176/68 "2009-12-29T14:09:07Z")
Huh. We got _IM2_ (which looks pretty good), but not _Wolfman_. ---
**Author:** ![TWDuke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e495f1/32.png) [@TWDuke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TWDuke)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2009, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-new-sherlock-holmes-film-boxed-spoilers/522176/69 "2009-12-29T16:23:51Z")
I didn’t get Iron Man 2 either. The Wolf-Man looks interesting.It looks like Hannibal Lecter is the Wolf-Man’s father. And I do mean Hannibal Lecter.Did anyone else get a trailer for _Sherlock Holmes_? That struck me as odd, although with nearly and hour of ads and previews, they may have felt the need to remind people what they were about to see. ---
**Author:** ![WOOKINPANUB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wookinpanub/32/132_2.png) [@WOOKINPANUB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WOOKINPANUB)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2009, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-new-sherlock-holmes-film-boxed-spoilers/522176/70 "2009-12-29T17:51:46Z")
I liked it well enough but was distracted by the fuckwad behind me who was kicking my seat. I honestly thought I was going to end the afternoon in jail. Also, I couldn’t stop fixating on where the heck I’d seen the actor who plays Lord Coward. Well, I was pretty sure it was on “The Tudors” but I couldn’t quite recall who he played. Once I remembered it was Cranmer, I could enjoy Mssrs. Law and Downey. Hate, hate , hated Rachel McAdams in this. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2009, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-new-sherlock-holmes-film-boxed-spoilers/522176/71 "2009-12-29T18:12:57Z")
BTW, why give a bad guy so obvious a name as “Lord Coward”? ---
**Author:** ![vislor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/vislor/32/5933_2.png) [@vislor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vislor)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2009, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-new-sherlock-holmes-film-boxed-spoilers/522176/72 "2009-12-29T18:27:03Z")
I liked it. I thought it was a fun movie. Was it Holmes? Well, I think it was. I do think the quick explanations, with information only Holmes knew, was correct. I liked that he got rid of the supernatural explanation as well. Further, his ability with disguises is also supposed to be quite good. I thought they were all true to the stories. What I find interesting is his age. RDJ is potentially too old for him. Wikipedia puts him as born in 1854 with one theory being as late as 1868. That means, in 1888 when the stories start, his age is from 34 to 20! I mention his age because while I absolutely LOVE Jeremy Brett’s performance and still picture him when I read a Holmes story, JB was 51 when he started playing Holmes. Hardly in his prime as Holmes probably would have been in the stories. From that angle, while it was more action than the stories do contain, remember we only get Watson’s perspective of the action, not Holmes’. By the time Watson is brought into the story, [Edit: Or the parts in which he is involved in the story] it’s usually toward the end when things are concluding, not during the action. In this movie, we get to see the whole story and so it should seem different from the books, because that’s not what they emphasized. Again, all in my opinion. I thought it was a good Holmes story. I liked the fight scenes and descriptions. I still think of Jeremy Brett as Holmes and I wonder if those adaptations with JB are true to the original feel of the stories as perceived by a Victorian. But, I think there is room in there for what this movie did. vislor ---
**Author:** ![WOOKINPANUB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wookinpanub/32/132_2.png) [@WOOKINPANUB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WOOKINPANUB)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2009, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-new-sherlock-holmes-film-boxed-spoilers/522176/73 "2009-12-29T18:29:28Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#): > > BTW, why give a bad guy so obvious a name as “Lord Coward”? I thought the same thing 😛 Meant to say that we also had the Iron Man preview. I thought it looked amusing due to RDJ but would never have considered seeing it since that’s not my genre. However, did anyone else thing Mickey Rourke was scary as hell as that chain whipping, Russky type dude? At first I thought "Oh good, Mr. Rourke got another role. Granted, he looks like he’s reprising Randy the Ram, but. . . " and then they showed the scene with him marching toward Tony Stark with his chains blazing. Something about that scene made it very effective. ---
**Author:** ![Helena\_Handbasket](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e47c2d/32.png) [@Helena\_Handbasket](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Helena_Handbasket)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2009, 11:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-new-sherlock-holmes-film-boxed-spoilers/522176/74 "2009-12-29T23:02:54Z")
> [@Shirley\_Ujest](#): > > You are right. > > I sat there trying to figure out who Mark STrong looked like and all I could get was a Young Andy Garcia with an Accent that isn’t Latino. Stanley Tucci is spot on. By the time they showed him on the podium at seven minutes to noon, I was convinced it was Stanley Tucci. In that scene, I could see that it wasn’t, but wow, what a resemblance! I really enjoyed it but I think I shall have to see it again in a cinema that takes its audio a bit more seriously. My little local theater has their sound up too loud or something, and RDJ’s accent was especially hard to get. The true Brit accents were easy, but his (while spot on) was garbled in my little theater. ---
**Author:** ![Helena\_Handbasket](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e47c2d/32.png) [@Helena\_Handbasket](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Helena_Handbasket)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2009, 11:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-new-sherlock-holmes-film-boxed-spoilers/522176/75 "2009-12-29T23:05:33Z")
> [@WOOKINPANUB](#): > > Hate, hate , hated Rachel McAdams in this. Me too. She seemed a lightweight compared to Mssrs Law and Downey. ---
**Author:** ![levdrakon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/49beb7/32.png) [@levdrakon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/levdrakon)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2009, 11:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-new-sherlock-holmes-film-boxed-spoilers/522176/76 "2009-12-29T23:13:59Z")
Is it in 3D? Maybe I’ll see it then. If not - well nobody watches 2D anymore, do they? ---
**Author:** ![Martini\_Enfield](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/martini_enfield/32/11123_2.png) [@Martini\_Enfield](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martini_Enfield)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2009, 8:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-new-sherlock-holmes-film-boxed-spoilers/522176/77 "2009-12-30T08:24:56Z")
> [@levdrakon](#): > > Is it in 3D? Maybe I’ll see it then. If not - well nobody watches 2D anymore, do they? Most movies are still 2D. I’ve yet to see a 3D feature film FWIW. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2009, 3:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-new-sherlock-holmes-film-boxed-spoilers/522176/78 "2009-12-31T03:01:29Z")
I was a big Holmes fan at one point, and then I was in a phase where the analysis of the stories, all the chronology and Watson’s wandering bullet wound (what? nobody mentioned that he had a limp in half in the movie?) and what a tantalus was became more fascinating than the stories themselves, because I got bored of them. So I wasn’t expecting much of this movie. Worse, I had just watched a 1966 Holmes film, A Study in Terror, because it was on TCM for the first time. It’s a truly terrible film with an idiot Watson, though with a very physical Holmes. But I liked this. Sure, you can go through and pile up flaws. It was too long. The final scene was idiotic. The CGI was horrible. The villain was worthless and the plot very dumb. I mean, dude, when you walk into a room with a dozen lords and cabinet secretaries and whatnot and announce that your big plan is to rule, all I could think was, aren’t you already? But I did appreciate that they tossed in so many tiny points from the stories. They remembered that Irene Adler was from New Jersey and that Watson had a gambling habit so bad that Holmes once to lock up his checkbook and that Holmes knew buritsu (which is a misspelling of a form of jujitsu) and that Watson mentions a bull-pup on his first meeting with Holmes. The other movies always go for the gross details and not the little telling ones. Sure, they went way overboard with the action scenes. But Holmes was a blend of cerebration and physical action more than most movies ever show. This compensated for the purely cerebral Holmes of the past. We got an Iron Man 2 trailer. There were a couple of shots in the trailer that I swear exactly mirrored scenes in Holmes, especially the one where Stark is lying beaten in a road. Downey was playing Downey in both movies and it’s amazing that both work so well. ---
**Author:** ![blondebear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blondebear/32/1022_2.png) [@blondebear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blondebear)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2009, 3:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-new-sherlock-holmes-film-boxed-spoilers/522176/79 "2009-12-31T03:28:42Z")
I really enjoyed this. Loved the look of old London. Downey and Law played off of each other well, and they both had their share of funny lines. > [@](#): > > “No girl wants to marry a doctor that can’t tell if a man is dead or not!” ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2009, 3:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-new-sherlock-holmes-film-boxed-spoilers/522176/80 "2009-12-31T03:42:25Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > …and that Holmes knew buritsu (which is a misspelling of a form of jujitsu)… O, the irony!: [The Adventure of the Empty House - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baritsu) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-new-sherlock-holmes-film-boxed-spoilers/522176.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-new-sherlock-holmes-film-boxed-spoilers/522176.md?page=5)