Nit Picking Nerd
Yes, that’s me. I saw Sherlock Holmes tonight and it was incredibly entertaining, well written, well directed, and well acted. The bromantic chemistry between Jude Law and Robert Downey, Jr. felt genuine, and the Asberger’s-type take on Holmes’ genius and quirks really worked. The chick was useless except for the purposes of setting up a plot line for a sequel, which I sincerely hope they make. The villain looked too much like the bad guy from Ocean’s Eleven and should have been just a little more badass, but at least his Evil Plot was solid enough to make Holmes work for it.
But I just need to say: If you’re going to make a movie about a character whose most famous trait is his ability to spot every detail, however minute, you should take note of the following:
It’s three miles from Westminster to Tower Bridge. A good hour’s walk. Yet in this flick, a few minutes of tramping in the very sewers traipsed by Guy Fawkes led to a magically instant arrival on the other side of town.
Stuff like this usually irritates me in movies set in L.A., because as an Angeleno I can tell you for sure that every movie you see where somebody manages to cross huge swaths of L.A. in record time (Lethal Weapon, Point Break, 2012, every incarnation of Terminator) is nothing but a pack of lies. I never thought they’d pull this with London, although it shouldn’t surprise me too much as hardly anybody would notice/care about this egregious geographic error without being familiar with Zone 1. The only reason I can’t forgive it is that it’s in a freaking movie about Sherlock Holmes, which should inspire an OCD level of attention to detail. Bad script editor, that’s a bad boy! No snacks for you!
But honestly, apart from that the movie was great. This has been your friendly neighborhood nerdy nit picker with a useless dissection of a work of blatant fiction.
The nit I have to pick with it is how the ship was launched during the shipyard fight scene.
Unless there’s a very very wide stretch on the Thames, that ship would have been launched sideways into the River, instead of stern first.
Not being a Holmes purist, I loved the film. I loved the fact that Downey’s portrayal was at once down in the muck and above it all. I loved that Holmes and Watson behaved like an old married couple and Holmes’ jealousy of Mary. I loved Gladstone. We will be adding it to our dvd collection.