Strangely speaking, I was reading Raymond Chandler while watching "The Detective Sherlock Holmes", but I didn’t connect his Philip Marlowe with Holmes. When I wrote this commentary, I was shocked. I think that these two are engaged in the same profession: private detective (although detective was almost originally defined by Sherlock Holmes). In fact, it is not surprising that both the Sherlock who entered public life in Conan Doyle's writings in the 1880s and the Sherlock Holmes in Guy Ritchie's latest movie are similar to legendary figures in mythology, not Marlowe who is taking pictures. Los Angeles, where there is no sunshine, is an anti-hero who is engaged in the gray profession. In the eyes of thousands of fans, Holmes is Sherlock Holmes, he cannot be classified into a certain type of occupation.
It is precisely because of the mythology of Holmes that he is particularly favored by Hollywood movies that are good at making secular myths. According to "Guinness World Records" statistics, Holmes has been played by more than 70 actors before and after, and has appeared on the screen more than 200 times. The most classic of these is the image of Sherlock Holmes portrayed by Basil Rathbone in Universal's films in the 1940s and British actor Jeremy Brett in the 1980s. Of course, Sherlock Holmes fans have doubts about whether these movies maintain the original flavor of the novel. Generally speaking, commercial films are shot for ordinary audiences. The tastes of audiences in each period change. It is impossible for all Sherlock Holmes films to be faithful to Conan Doyle’s original works. If that happens, audiences may also be bored. It's dying. Therefore, all these films have a problem of "advancing with the times": how to pack new wine in old bottles, how to capture the audience with the most popular audiovisual methods, and how to inject current era factors into the movies.
Guy Ritchie’s Holmes is a hard candy wrapped in a modern movie wrapper. It looks beautiful, cool, and entertaining, but it’s not chewy.
The story still takes place in the allegorical London in the Victorian era. The second industrial revolution brought new prosperity to the city and also breeds new evils. Holmes is going to face off this time with Lord Blackwood, a villain who can combine ancient witchcraft with modern technology in an attempt to subvert the entire society. However, for Holmes' IQ and reasoning ability, this story constructed by the four screenwriters is still too simple and lacks suspense. Guy Ritchie also prematurely heralded the ending in the narrative. The screenwriter of the entire movie falls into the paradigm of knowing the result halfway through. The only surprise that the film attempts to retain—the so-called witchcraft is nothing more than a smoke screen over the latest technology—is clearly unattractive for true reasoning lovers.
Despite the lack of reasoning, the visual effects of the movie are still very eye-catching, and will never disappoint modern audiences spoiled by "Avatar". The London scene produced by CGI is unmatched by the streets and corners built in the studio era. It can show the audience a panoramic view of the entire city during that period, and this display will definitely strengthen the allegorical nature of the city: The emerging modern London is about to become what people see today. Here, pre-modern heroes and villains are in the final battle, and reason, progress, and civilization are bound to triumph. The London in Guy Ritchie’s movie reminds me of New York in "The Gangs of New York". The Tower Bridge in the final vision of the movie (still under construction) is just like Scorsese’s movie that finally rises from the other side. Like Manhattan, it has a strong sense of time and history. In terms of the allegorical nature of the city, London here undoubtedly has the shadow of Gotham City in the Batman series. Like the Batman in "The Dark Knight", Holmes here is not a little gangster, or even for his own sake. A conspirator of self-interest, but a big wicked man trying to subvert the foundation of the entire civilization. The difference is that Nolan can make the audience's soul tremble for this duel, while Guy Ritchie just makes the audience shake the muscles of their faces.
In Conan Doyle’s writings, Holmes is omniscient and omnipotent, close to God, unlike Poirot’s detective who relies entirely on reasoning, but reasoning—the ability to get results from the intricacies of details is still Sherlock Holmes’s housekeeper. One of the skills. In a Sherlock Holmes movie, you may be able to take off his deerskin hat, but you can never ignore this. Guy Ritchie has not forgotten reasoning, even deliberately "strengthening" this ability. In addition to letting Holmes make an ugly appearance in front of Watson’s girlfriend and the last revealing moment routinely, Guy Ritchie also arranged two fights to show the audience the detective’s reasoning ability: Holmes was in In my mind, he calculated what effect each punch he would have on his opponent. The audience witnessed Holmes’ "reasoning process" in slow motion. Then, the audience once again saw Holmes hit the opponent according to the pre-determined "reasoning" on the screen. Falling to the ground, it is not bad at all, just as accurate as a game written by a computer. I don’t know if anyone can do it so accurately. I don’t know whether this is inference or cybernetics. But I know I’ve never seen Conan Doyle. Teenagers who like computer games will definitely think this is cool enough.
Also cool is Dr. Watson. In this movie, he is no longer an irritable picture of Sherlock Holmes's composure, a panic when he encounters an accident. He became a nearly equal partner with Sherlock Holmes, and was no longer so "loyal". He was always ready to end the cohabitation relationship with Sherlock Holmes for a woman, and Sherlock Holmes seemed to be anxious about this. This kind of semi-gay relationship is almost a feature of Guy Ritchie's movies. From "Two Smoking Guns" to "Rock Gangster", there is always this kind of ambiguous relationship between those little gangsters.
Guy Ritchie has always been considered a formalist. His films have nothing to do with entertainment except for the intricate, weird, and ingenious screenwriters. There is nothing wrong with such formalism, at least it looks cool. In the words of a famous film critic, it means "use some cool things to make a cool movie for a group of cool people." "The Detective Sherlock Holmes" is also very cool. If you want to have some fun in the cinema with your girlfriend on the weekend, then go to the movie, it will definitely feel very entertaining. If you are a fan of Conan Doyle and want to see the original Sherlock Holmes, then go home and revisit "The Complete Works of Detective Sherlock Holmes" again!
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