DVD Review – Sherlock Holmes

I avoided Sherlock Holmes at the cinema.  Partly because there were films I wanted to see more that were showing at the same time, but mostly because it looked a bit too much like a Wild Wild West/Shanghai Knights style telling of a Holmes story and I’m really not a fan of either of those.  Presented with the opportunity to review the DVD however, I thought I’d give it a chance.

The movie has a strong footing to start from.  It’s directed by Guy Ritchie, stars an interesting pairing of Robert Downey Jr and Jude Law as Holmes and Watson, has the rather sinister-looking Mark Strong as the main villain, and drops the lovely Rachel McAdams in as Holmes’ female associate and master criminal.

Holmes starts on a high by incarcerating the infamous black magician, Lord Blackwood, keeping London safe once more.  He descends into a dull and unsatisfying existence with no cases to solve until it appears that Blackwood has risen from the grave to complete his true plan.  The hunt starts once more for Holmes and this time he has to contend with a loved-up Watson, whose fiancée he rubs up the wrong way, and his own former love, Irene Adler

Throw away any ideas that Sherlock is a tweed-wearing, pipe-smoking, upper-class, clue-pondering toff.  Instead consider that he is tweed-wearing, pipe-smoking, thrill-seeking, bare-knuckle boxing, incredibly observant genius, who appears to both love and hate the fact he knows everything.  The idea of which I detested at first thought but having seen Holmes in action I’ve certainly become a fan of his style.

The scenes in which the audience is treated to a moment of Holmes clarity, when his senses allow him to see exactly what he needs to do in a given situation is pure brilliance.  Holmes plans every one of his next moves knowing the consequences of each action before he acts and then treats us to a flurry of orchestrated movement resulting in exactly what he intended as an outcome.  They are fantastic scenes and credit to Guy Ritchie for using them as a way of depicting Holmes’ observation skills.

Robert Downey Jr is his usual, charismatic, very cool self and he injects his style into the Holmes character, giving the world famous detective an edge that he shouldn’t have in the traditional sense but he does and it works.  As much as I loved watching Downey Jr as Holmes, I had a real issue with the Holmes dialogue.  The speech was very fast and very English, too English, I just couldn’t understand a thing he said half the time.

It’s a unique view on the Sherlock Holmes stories and not at all like my original fears of another Wild Wild West.  It is full of olde English action and mystery, and gives us the starting point for what could well be a franchise.  It is one of those films that you can just play, sit back and enjoy.  There’s no need to over-exert your thinking muscles and equally you won’t get bored.  It has some fantastic visuals and in parts is actually pretty funny.  Sherlock Holmes gets 3 bowler hats out of 5.

Review – Iron Man 2

Where do I start with a review of the sequel to one of the best super hero movies ever?  In my opinion the origin story is generally always the better movie when compared to the sequels.  I put this down to time.  Time is afforded in huge amounts to very small details of an origin story, whereas the sequels always jump straight in from where we left our hero.  They quickly introduce the new characters and head straight to the action, skipping the minute details so that we can just get on with seeing how things pan out.  Is there any other way of doing it?  Do I factor this in when reviewing Iron Man 2?  Do I allow for the fact that it is accepted it will be inferior to Iron Man 1 and bump up the score accordingly? 

Fortunately for Iron Man 2, it doesn’t need me to apply any such handicap to my score.  The story picks up right where it left off.  Tony Stark has just announced to the world that he IS Iron Man and he has spent some time making public appearances and battling with the government over who should possess the suit.  In the meantime, a Russian physicist has designed a suit for himself that gives him hugely powerful whips as extensions to his arms, which as will be clearly demonstrated, can cut straight through a car.  With an informative yet fearsome title, “Whiplash” plans to topple Stark Industries by going straight for Tony Stark/Iron Man.

On top of that Tony Stark is having to deal with Justin Hammer, his closest but very distant rival in the weapons arena, a rather annoyed Nick Fury, a somewhat disappointed Pepper Potts, and a strikingly beautiful new assistant, Natalia Romanova, who could prove deadly.

Did I mention War Machine?

As would be expected from the sequel in any series, the level of action has been ramped up a notch, and as I mentioned above, less time is afforded to the little things.  There is no need to explain the workshop of Tony’s home, or his relationship with Pepper, or his cavalier attitude to most subjects, or even the Arc Reactors or his good friend James “Rhodey” Rhodes.  This leaves Jon Favreau plenty of time to show us some fantastic action sequences.  Whiplash at Monaco is a sight to behold as is a fight between Iron Man and a rather evenly matched opponent.  They certainly drew some rather impressed noises from me, like I was watching a fireworks display. 

In terms of the new characters, Mickey Rourke is just fantastic as Whiplash and whilst present quite frequently throughout the film, I could have done with a bit more destruction on his part.  Just a few more things cut in half with his whips would have satisfied me but other than that he plays the angry Russian muscle-bound physicist with an agenda very well.

Sam Rockwell is yet again perfectly cast as the charismatic, but knowingly inferior weapons manufacturer, Justin Hammer.  Hammer is tormented by the success of Stark and sees himself in Tony’s shadow but will never admit it and it will never stop him striving to eliminate the competition despite knowing it is unlikely he’d be able to do so.  Rockwell conveys this inner thought process brilliantly in every facial expression. 

As for Scarlett Johansson as Natalia Romanova AKA “Black Widow”, well she’s pretty much a non-entity.  I didn’t think much of her apart from her outfit towards the end of the movie.  Whilst she has an important part to play, I wasn’t very impressed by the character and overall I thought she was quite dull. Also, her fight scenes were possibly the clumsiest choreographed fights I have ever seen.  I don’t know whether Favreau did it deliberately or not but I didn’t like them or her.

Whilst not a new character, James “Rhodey” Rhodes has been recast and is now played by Don Cheadle, who actually makes a very smooth transition and I forgot it wasn’t Cheadle in Iron Man 1 to be honest.  My positive view of Cheadle is somewhat assisted I fear by the fact that he plays War Machine, who I feel was awesome but under-used.  Though technically this movie, whilst a sequel to Iron Man, is in fact the origin story of War Machine so the next movie should be packed full with a grey-coloured Iron Man covered in weaponry shooting the hell out of everything, and this time with more effective weaponry!

The movie doesn’t deviate from my expectations that it would be a bigger, more expensive version of Iron Man 1 with less time afforded to the little things, but that’s not a bad thing.  It means we get extra doses of destruction and mayhem and modifications to existing elements that we already know and love.  You like his armour?  How about if it took the shape of a briefcase?!  Also, how could any relationships develop if we had to reiterate their dynamics or how they started?

I loved Iron Man 2, not as much as number one, but it was still brilliant and once released will be joining my Blu-Ray collection.  It gets 4 Arc Reactors our of 5 from me.

I’m back, but an alien’s inner jaw is missing

Well after a prolonged break due to volcanic ash and a break to recover from that, I’m back! 

To welcome my return, here’s an appeal for information from the London Film Museum who have misplaced the inner haw of the Alien Queen!

The London Film Museum is sad to announce that someone has taken part of its Alien Queen!

The incident occurred last Wednesday when at the end of the day a member of staff noticed that the inner jaw was missing from the 30 foot piece.

The inner jaw is famous from the films as the part that pushes forward as the Alien creatures widen their jaws, usually in a scream. The production model housed in the museum belongs to the museums owner, Jonathan Sands and has been in his personal collection since 1990.

“The Alien Queen sits in the largest section of the museum surrounded and guarding her batch of eggs.” Jonathan said today. “It saddens me that someone felt the urge to lean over the barrier and take the inner jaw section, therefore making the piece incomplete. Whoever has taken the jaw is probably looking to sell it on so we are monitoring auction websites for any items that appear, and we are reviewing security footage of the museum and will hopefully be able to find the culprit soon.”

“We are not looking to press charges, only to reclaim the jaw and make the Queen complete again. The piece has little commercial value in isolation, but has huge sentimental value for us here at the museum. We would like the person who took the jaw to feel that they can return it to us without any consequences.”

If anyone has information as the whereabouts the of the Alien Queens inner jaw then they should contact the museum on 020 7202 7040 or email info@londonfilmmuseum.com.

Check out the image above and below to see what the Queen looks like without her inner jaw.