I’ve been excited for Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes for a long time. I’ve liked Ritchie since Lock, Stock And Two Smoking Barrels, loved him after Snatch, lost faith in him with Swept Away, was let down by Revolver, but fell right back in love with him again after Rocknrolla. His classic British gangster heist films are absolutely brilliant.
After going back to his roots with Rocknrolla, I had the utmost faith that he could do no wrong with Sherlock Holmes. But once I was sitting in the theater watching it, only minutes into the movie, I started to worry. Sherlock Holmes hits the ground running. The opening scenes feel like they might have been the final sequences to a previous movie, as if this movie was the second chapter in a trilogy and the opening scene was a refresher as to how the first movie ended – just like Robert Zemeckis did with the Back To The Future movies.
Although the opening sequence is good, it was the scene that followed that had me worried. The second sequence tries to quickly establish the characters, but doesn’t quite show the characters for who they are in the rest of the movie. The scene actually feels out of place, perhaps falling victim to too much editing. That’s my guess. But after that, the rest of the movie is a fun, smooth sailing rollercoaster-of-a-ride.
