Saturday, May 22, 2010

Sherlock Holmes

The movie, which we watched on DVD recently, was great. It's kinda predictable to present classic heroes as tortured souls, and they've done that with Holmes. But, according to the boy, Holmes was in fact a tortured soul in the original novels.

Actually, the relationship between he and Dr Watson is very, very reminiscent to that between Dr House and his friend Wilson.

Hey, both pairs have the the initials H & W! I wonder whether the creators of House were being really clever.

The other thing about Holmes, which I didn't know from my limited exposure to old Sherlock Holmes movies, is that he is keen and talented boxer. This is good for the box office because guys like a bit violence and girls like a bit of a six-pack. And again, this is apparently a feature of the original character as per the novels.

The movie has a villanous black magic practitioner, which the boy and I always like to see in movies, as well as a super-clever female thief, whom I suspect was included to prevent it from being a boys-only story.

Oh, and the scenery is fantastic. It's sorta like Blade Runner gone retro (seeing as it's set in Victorian London) - all industrial and ugly and beautiful at the same time.

6 comments:

Watson Woodworth said...

House is based quite a bit on Sherlock Holmes.
But I only know this because I lived in Stella Magdalen's house for two years and she's a big Holmes and House fan.

LK said...

I never put that Holmes/House connection together before but it seems obvious now. They are also both addicted to drugs, solve mysteries and the Watson/Wilson friend.

Also loved the movie, the soundtrack makes it all the more real and gritty I thought.

Angela said...

Cullen and I picked up on the house comparison. We were laughing throughout the whole movie, because we kept pictureing house and wilson.
We actually watched the movie last night.

It is pretty neat that you picked up on the same thing.

Anonymous said...

I was all excited about your Sherlock Holmes recommendation and we thought we'd watch it (via the new Playstation rental service) but it's only available for purchase ($25!!) not rental, which was disappointing cause it sounds like just the sort of thing I was feeling like watching.

Antoinette said...

It was some rowdy fun, that Sherlock Holmes! I am personally way over Robert Downey Jr. but it was fun to watch. I liked the whole steampunk vibe, too.

Violet said...

Yeah it's definitely one of the better movies out on DVD at the mo, even worth shelling out the money to buy donnasoowho!

steampunk - that's exactly the best description for the atmosphere :-)