Sherlock Holmes is an adaption of a series of books by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and was released on boxing day 2009, directed by popular British director Guy Richie, who also directed films such as “Lock, stock and two smoking barrels” (1998) and “Snatch” (2000) the film stars popular actors such as Robert Downey Jr. (Iron man) Sherlock Holmes and Jude Law (Alfie) as Dr. John Watson, his assistant. The film had an estimated budget of $90,000,000, and made a gross of $209,019,489, $62,304,277 of that was made in the opening weekend.
I thought the film was mediocre, my reasons for this are that it establishes itself as an action film, the main target audience for this genre is under 25’s. but has a complex plot as well as a difficult narrative to follow, despite the intellectual aspect of it, it has not taken into account that most people do not want the challenge of unravelling the storyline to understand what is going on, instead of sitting back and enjoying it. On the other hand, there were a lot of entertaining, comic fight scenes and a few other comic scenes. Overall I think it is a well made film with a few minor problems.
There is a sequel in production, it has been featured in the news as Richmond Park has been taken over as a film set, reportedly as a 19th Century gypsy camp, an interesting setting, I suspect this could be the location of a chase and eventually a fight, making the sequel a promising aspect.
The use of fast camera shots and experimental angles in Sherlock Holmes, can be linked to Guy Richie’s distinctive directing, in “Snatch” and “RocknRolla” there are similar shots, these shots create tension, an aggressive atmosphere and adds an exciting edge to a fight scene. Throughout the film there is little lighting, creating a dark tone throughout, the grittiness of the storyline is projected by this.
