Movie Reviews

SHERLOCK HOLMES

First up we have Robert Downey Jr’s take on the world’s most famous detective. Ever since he swapped the hard drugs for heavy lifting, he’s been on a roll and post-Iron Man, Sherlock Holmes sees him firing up another potential monster franchise. Director Guy Ritchie (Lock Stock And Two Smoking Barrels), hasn’t had a hit for years and is ready to win favour with Hollywood (who are no doubt still a bit off him for bailing out of Madonna’s muscular embrace) by applying his ADD style of filmmaking to 19th Century Britain (don’t worry there were still hot girls and guns).

So how’d they pull up? Well, it’s not The Dark Knight, which in this case is probably a good thing. Downey’s Holmes isn’t a complete rewiring of the character but instead a 2.0 really; he’s a little drunker, a little funnier and a lot punchier but the eccentricity and smarts remain true to the books. A serious take on Holmes with this line-up would never have worked and while there are dark elements – the plot revolves around a mysterious cult and London looks like the ominous dirty beast it should – it’s all about the punches and punchlines. And they all land on the beat, despite Ritchie’s furious pace.  The cliches, of which there are plenty, are all forgiveable in the light of the way the story is delivered and the strength of the dialogue. It also proves the rule that a little CGI goes a long way – the environment is believable so when the inevitable ‘plosions kick in (it’s 2010 remember) there’s a sense of weight and danger in play. And the bad guy is Mark Strong (you know, the English guy who looks like the impossible offspring of Andy Garcia and Stanley Tucci) which means Alan Rickman and Gary Oldman finally got a week off (no doubt they spent the time on a joint plot to use their evil wizard powers to blow up the Nakatomi building).  By using an original script over one of the well-bashed old tales and upgrading rather than rebuilding a well loved character, Ritchie and Downey should keep their audience and accountants cheering well into the new year.

THE LOVELY BONES

And that’s precisely where Peter Jackson went wrong. Having conquered the Lord Of The Rings (next up - Tintin), the NZ born director has book-converting fever (and confidence), this time adapting Alice Sebold’s 2002 novel The Lovely Bones. If you don’t remember it, it was the one just about everyone’s aunty was reading around Christmas 2003, about the 14-year-old who was raped and murdered and then hung out in limbo watching over her family and killer. By all reports, the book is a cracker but you can see very early on in this film that getting the tone right – balancing a childlike narration of some heavy, heavy shit – and stuffing everything in must have been a real struggle for Uncle PJ. It’s Silence Of The Lambs meets Fantasia in a pair of flares and it’s as clunky as C3P0 falling down an escalator. For starters, from an aesthetic point of view the parallel worlds are garish. The ‘70s schtick is unconvincing and unnecessary – a common mistake for overtly nostalgic directors – and the fantasyland is almost exclusively obvious CGI, inconsistent and dull. Is your idea of heaven a golden field? Hmmmmn…

From an acting standpoint the only notable performance comes from Susan Sarandon as the voice of reason, a chain smoking, whisky swilling grandma but even she can’t save this from making us watch Mark Wahlberg’s attempts at ‘emotions’. Simple concepts are often dragged out for the sake of huge visuals, where as sub plots that you would guess made sense in the book are painted over as quickly as they are presented. We know who killed her; we know she’s dead; we know it sucks for all involved, so what is the point to this story? Unfortunately, that’s a question that’s never truly resolved. While The Lovely Bones is never boring, it’s also never really affecting either. Jackson’s remarkably juvenile and “Hollywood” take on teen romance is a huge surprise and clashes horribly with his existing interest in the macabre that, while severely scaled down in order to secure a palatable US classification, is also on display. In the end the question of “what’s the point?” is overtaken by that of “who is this for?”. High concept but low output, The Lovely Bones is a film that could have done with half the budget and whole lot more fleshing out.

My name is Ed Lamington and this is my Christmas gift to you. Now pass me the ham.