Sherlock Holmes

Robert Downey Jr. a bien mérité son Golden Globe, Jude Law m’a agréablement surpris par son excellente prestation et Rachel McAdams ne m’a encore jamais déçu, ici avec un rôle de voleuse rusée qui lui va comme un gant. Tout comme avec les autres œuvres de Guy Ritchie, j’ai quelques réserves pour l’ensemble du film, mais il faut quand même lui reconnaître la remarquable retranscription qu’il a faite de l’ambiance du vieux Londres. Je reste conservateur en ce qui concerne le genre policier. (07/02/2010)

Guy Ritchie au service d'Hollywood. Son trait de réalisateur le plus fort, tout comme l'exhibition musicale la plus bombastique de Zimmer, est ressenti dans l'introduction spectaculaire. Le reste du film est ensuite "juste" une conversation agréable entre Downey et Law, insérée dans le monde sombre et magique à la manière de Potter. Nous ne sommes pas trop surpris, le scénario routinier mise sur la certitude - d'excellents acteurs et une atmosphère dangereuse, enveloppée de nuages, dans le Londres d'alors. Un divertissement décent. (02/01/2010)

Guy Ritchie is one of those directors whose qualities I acknowledge but whose films leave me underwhelmed, and Sherlock Holmes left me very much so. I didn’t get bored, I didn’t have fun, I’ve just watched it once and I’m no longer interested in it. I will forget that they exists. Sherlock. Guy. (20/01/2010)

It's good that even though Hollywood tinsel tries to pummel Guy Ritchie with its most typical special effects (predictable plot pirouettes, character development), he’s still the distinctive, foxy filmmaker who squeezed the most out of even a banal detective plot within its limits (the boxing match, the flashbacks). Yet the main character (compared to the trailers) is not Robert Downey Jr., but Jude Law, who despite the thankless role of a dry sniffer throws up elegant bon mots and hard fists, and paradoxically I enjoyed him a bit more. Both Strong and McAdams are bland due to the minimal space they get and their total omission in the plot (yes, that’s quite a weakness with Strong as the main villain). Nevertheless, positive feelings prevail, mainly due to the pace, the whole peculiar aura, and Zimmer's very unconventional but excellent work. I’m looking forward to the second film. (14/01/2010)

A perfect cast, but it doesn’t help much. Strong spends too much time in the background, Law can’t keep up with Downey in any of their scenes (while in this movie they are meant to be on level pegging!), Rachel McAdams is uninspiring, the movie lacks any real case, deduction is not employed, but abused like deus ex machina and so Hans Zimmer steals all the attention. And it’s not that Richie is bored; he is having fun, and it works well in some places, but he fell a long way short of managing to reproduce the type of goofy shenanigans like we saw in Pirates of the Caribbean. But it’s clear that’s what he was aiming for. If you want to make an untraditional Holmes movie, you need either a good idea or you need a good Sherlock to base one’s performance on, which Downey does in any case. ♫ OST score: 4/5 (07/01/2010)