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they really have been flirting like this for hours
GUYS, GUYS, I NEED A HOLMES REVIVAL. YESTERDAY. I expect that all reviews of the new Holmes movie are supposed to come with a disclaimer, so here is mine: I adore the Doyle stories. I haven't read them in far too long, but there was a time when I happily mainlined all of Adventures, Return, and possibly Memoirs. I get horrible and snarly about incompetent Watson. I fucking love the late '80s BBC series, and Jeremy Brett is probably my quintessential Holmes. But I am in no way whatsoever a canon purist. I think canons should run free, mutate, mythologize, and explore new angles! I also thought that at best I would be mildly entertained by this new film, and that at worst I would loathe it.
I kind of loved it.
I went in with basically zero expectations that it would be any good at all (except possibly for Jude Law's Watson, who had struck me as astonishingly Watson-esque in the trailers) and then it was! It was any good at all! Maybe I enjoyed it so thoroughly because I had no expectations, but I also realized slowly over the course of the film that I had two check-lists going in my head, and both of them were steadily filled in, to my growing astonishment.
The first list was of things I was deathly afraid they would do, and then, to my astonishment, they did not:
They did not make Holmes all action hero: that worry was dispelled within the first, I don't know, three minutes? because the moment we got his precise internal monologue on how to most effectively incapacitate the guard, I was sold. I do wish we'd had a few more monologues about his methods, but both the dinner with Mary and the reveal at the end were wonderful, and also when I say "monologues about his methods" I probably mean "short lectures to an interested Watson," but I would not sacrifice badass competent long-suffering Watson for the fucking universe, so it's a more-than-fair trade.
I was also afraid that Holmes and Irene Adler would have an epic romance, but no, what I gathered from that relationship is that Holmes is seriously easy for badass competent people. Don't worry, Holmes, so am I. I seriously loved Irene: she did spend a little bit of time being damsel-in-distress, but I think Watson saved Holmes about as often as both of them saved her, and for the reverse mugging near the beginning alone she is one of my new favorite people. Plus at the end, Irene hada Joker card foreshadowing about Moriarty! This made me very happy.
What I was most worried about, though, was that any of Lord Blackwood's supernatural tricks would turn out to be actually supernatural; actually, I went in assuming that they were, and that I would have to resign myself to steampunk magical realism when I really did honestly want a straight-up detective story. Then, nearing the end, I started being deeply worried that there would be at least one loose end that Holmes wouldn't be able to tie up with logic, just to provide an AWESOME TWIST. But they didn't go there, and I am also wildly happy about that.
My other list was of things that I desperately wanted them to do, but didn't expect them to actually go through with: there's some overlap between the two, obviously, ie actually taking the time to showcase Holmes' mad deduction skills via precise monologue. And the disguises! I didn't even catch his following-Irene disguise, and his doctor-tending-Watson disguise is still making me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. What I really honestly wasn't expecting, though, was the sheer amount of Holmes/Watson. Just. Good god. I am very, very mildly sad they took out Irene's "They've been flirting like this for hours" line, but it was absolutely unnecessary, because, um, yes, they have!
My absolute favourite thread of subplot was the "Watson getting engaged and moving out" one; it opened up a Holmes/Watson relationship that's very easy to extrapolate from the canon but to which I don't think anyone's ever gone. Part of it, of course, has to do with the fact that, seriously, lack of social skills + absent-mindedness about anything that is not casework + (unmentioned but pretty obvious regardless) cocaine addiction = Holmes seriously needs Watson to stick around, and while I think that argument can be played in any incarnation in that Holmes needs Watson as an audience, what we have here is the most badass competent Watson in the history of ever, and Holmes needs him. And, of course, Watson needs him just as much, because being badass and competent and ex-army and insane enough to be best friends with Holmes, it really is never going to be their last case and he knows it. Crazy codependent totally-married Victorians for the win!
And I was going to say that while I will gladly embrace Watson and Irene and indeed poor Lestrade as perfectly valid and awesome variations on the canon, I'm not sure I can do it with RDJ's Holmes, but -- I think I talked myself into it accidentally in the last paragraph. Yes, I usually expect my Holmes to have neat hair and pressed suits, to be clean-shaven and aloof; but then, I usually expect my Watson to be better than everyone else by nearly keeping up with Holmes, and merely happy to be near his brilliance. So I think that if I like the variation on everyone else, I'm perfectly happy to have this variation on Holmes too. He still snarks and steeples his fingers in thought and knows More Than You, and that's all I could ask anyway.
...So this is the part where I write fic, yes? That's the problem with holidays. I have time to find new fannish enthusiasm, and next thing I know, my mind feels like an overstuffed shoebox. Ah well. Can't be helped.
I kind of loved it.
I went in with basically zero expectations that it would be any good at all (except possibly for Jude Law's Watson, who had struck me as astonishingly Watson-esque in the trailers) and then it was! It was any good at all! Maybe I enjoyed it so thoroughly because I had no expectations, but I also realized slowly over the course of the film that I had two check-lists going in my head, and both of them were steadily filled in, to my growing astonishment.
The first list was of things I was deathly afraid they would do, and then, to my astonishment, they did not:
They did not make Holmes all action hero: that worry was dispelled within the first, I don't know, three minutes? because the moment we got his precise internal monologue on how to most effectively incapacitate the guard, I was sold. I do wish we'd had a few more monologues about his methods, but both the dinner with Mary and the reveal at the end were wonderful, and also when I say "monologues about his methods" I probably mean "short lectures to an interested Watson," but I would not sacrifice badass competent long-suffering Watson for the fucking universe, so it's a more-than-fair trade.
I was also afraid that Holmes and Irene Adler would have an epic romance, but no, what I gathered from that relationship is that Holmes is seriously easy for badass competent people. Don't worry, Holmes, so am I. I seriously loved Irene: she did spend a little bit of time being damsel-in-distress, but I think Watson saved Holmes about as often as both of them saved her, and for the reverse mugging near the beginning alone she is one of my new favorite people. Plus at the end, Irene had
What I was most worried about, though, was that any of Lord Blackwood's supernatural tricks would turn out to be actually supernatural; actually, I went in assuming that they were, and that I would have to resign myself to steampunk magical realism when I really did honestly want a straight-up detective story. Then, nearing the end, I started being deeply worried that there would be at least one loose end that Holmes wouldn't be able to tie up with logic, just to provide an AWESOME TWIST. But they didn't go there, and I am also wildly happy about that.
My other list was of things that I desperately wanted them to do, but didn't expect them to actually go through with: there's some overlap between the two, obviously, ie actually taking the time to showcase Holmes' mad deduction skills via precise monologue. And the disguises! I didn't even catch his following-Irene disguise, and his doctor-tending-Watson disguise is still making me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. What I really honestly wasn't expecting, though, was the sheer amount of Holmes/Watson. Just. Good god. I am very, very mildly sad they took out Irene's "They've been flirting like this for hours" line, but it was absolutely unnecessary, because, um, yes, they have!
My absolute favourite thread of subplot was the "Watson getting engaged and moving out" one; it opened up a Holmes/Watson relationship that's very easy to extrapolate from the canon but to which I don't think anyone's ever gone. Part of it, of course, has to do with the fact that, seriously, lack of social skills + absent-mindedness about anything that is not casework + (unmentioned but pretty obvious regardless) cocaine addiction = Holmes seriously needs Watson to stick around, and while I think that argument can be played in any incarnation in that Holmes needs Watson as an audience, what we have here is the most badass competent Watson in the history of ever, and Holmes needs him. And, of course, Watson needs him just as much, because being badass and competent and ex-army and insane enough to be best friends with Holmes, it really is never going to be their last case and he knows it. Crazy codependent totally-married Victorians for the win!
And I was going to say that while I will gladly embrace Watson and Irene and indeed poor Lestrade as perfectly valid and awesome variations on the canon, I'm not sure I can do it with RDJ's Holmes, but -- I think I talked myself into it accidentally in the last paragraph. Yes, I usually expect my Holmes to have neat hair and pressed suits, to be clean-shaven and aloof; but then, I usually expect my Watson to be better than everyone else by nearly keeping up with Holmes, and merely happy to be near his brilliance. So I think that if I like the variation on everyone else, I'm perfectly happy to have this variation on Holmes too. He still snarks and steeples his fingers in thought and knows More Than You, and that's all I could ask anyway.
...So this is the part where I write fic, yes? That's the problem with holidays. I have time to find new fannish enthusiasm, and next thing I know, my mind feels like an overstuffed shoebox. Ah well. Can't be helped.
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Holmes is basically Tony Stark, y/n? GOD I AM SO EASY FOR THIS SHIT. AND ALSO WRITING FIC WHEN I GET HALF A MINUTE.
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YES, but that's honestly the main reason I'm uneasy about RDJ's Holmes. Like, I can't decide whether his Puppy Eyes of Doom are [a] awesomexellent because, oh my god, he NEEDS WATSON SO BAD, or [b] ridiculous, because are you fucking kidding me, Sherlock Holmes with puppy eyes. (On the other hand, Basil of Baker Street in The Great Mouse Detective, which I totally adore, does the puppy eyes thing and I don't mind! Stop being weirdly a purist specifically about Holmes himself, Aria.)
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(Anonymous) 2009-12-29 03:45 am (UTC)(link)Yes, that. This is my very favorite thing about this movie and the primary reason I loved it, but really all of this you say - I'm just ecstatic that it was pulled off so closely to the way I wanted it - and Watson - and anything I didn't like perfectly, there was something about it I liked. The supernatural lack and - well, yes; there's very little I have to say at all that you haven't said here and better.
I would be very pleased to see Aria!fic, as always! (Funny bit: a friend of mine whose first time it was at Yuletide linked the fic that was a gift to you and wondered whether it was a gift to me because it seemed like exactly my sort of thing, which - yes, in fact! So - I have yet to make my Yuletide comments, but thank you to you for requesting such fabulous things all the time. And so on. Anyhow!)
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(Anonymous) 2009-12-29 03:51 am (UTC)(link)no subject
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ARIA
I JUST GOT BACK FROM SEEING IT TWO SECONDS AGO
WE NEED TO TALK
and by talk I mean wave our hands and shriek a lot, because I agree with everything you said and Jude Law as Watson was genius genius genius and I loved him impossibly and I expected maybe mild and amusing amounts of gay and instead it was an EPIC LOVESONG TO CODEPENDENCY
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EPIC LOVESONG TO CODEPENDENCY
TELL ME YOU ARE WRITING FIC BECAUSE (WHEN I AM DONE WITH MY WHO REVIVAL, WHICH SHOULD ONLY TAKE ONE EPIC FIC) I AM GOING TO WRITE HOLMES/WATSON FIC SO HARD
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HOW ABOUT WE COWRITE SOMETHING?
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(HAHAHAHAH LIKE YOU EVEN HAVE TO ASK. FAHYE, WILL YOU WRITE THE MADCAP GENIUS OR THE SARCASTIC DOCTOR? DON'T PONDER TOO HARD.)
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(NO BUT I REALLY DO NEED TO ASK. BECAUSE BOTH OF THOSE CHOICES SOUND EXCELLENT.)
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(BASICALLY, WHEN IN DOUBT, ASSUME I WANT TO WRITE THE DOCTOR)
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(HAH, OKAY, FAIR ENOUGH. ROCK ON, I GET TO WRITE BONKERS HOLMES. \o/)
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Ahahah I just read the most petulant-sounding review of the film. IT IS NOT LIKE THE BOOKS. THE CHARACTERS WERE DESECRATED. WHY DO DIRECTORS THINK A FILM MUST HAVE ACTION TO BE INTERESTING. WAH WAH WAH.
Me: Are you...new to the area of film?
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Ooh, link me? I love annoyed reviews!
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It was a review in a newspaper, not online. Which possibly explains a few things.
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(Anonymous) 2010-01-02 07:02 am (UTC)(link)no subject
/picks nose