While we normally cover games, lets have a good discussion about movies. I myself am a big movie buff and enjoy watching a movie atleast once or twice a week. Be it a classic, or a newly released feature.
I'll start of with two recently released movies
Avatar and
Sherlock HolmesLast week I went to the movies, twice actually. The first time to see the much acclaimed 3-D version of Avatar and the second time to see the premiere of Sherlock Holmes. Now here is the funny part, I had my expectations for both movies.
Avatar being James Cameron’s latest movie masterpiece, I had high hopes, considering the guy’s track record in action.sci-fi movies so far. (A quick reminder; His director work includes: Aliens, Terminator, Terminator 2, The Abyss and True Lies.) By all means this movie must completely kick ass.
Sherlock Holmes is directed by Guy Ritchie, probably best known for Lock, Stock and Two smoking barrels, and more recently for Rock’nRolla. Now all his movie are quiet essentially about British tugs dealing with various illegal activities. Now the Sherlock Holmes trailer looked allot like a typical Hollywood version of an action movie, fights, guns, witty one-liners and massive explosions. Now ofcourse there is nothing wrong with that, I’d be the last guy in all of mankind to ever complain about a movie having too many explosions. But I was afraid this movie was going to destroy the Sherlock Holmes as the he was originally created by Arthur Conan Doyle.
Having seen both movies, I’ve actually found that I enjoyed Sherlock Holmes more then I enjoyed Avatar.
In my eyes, a large part of Avatar has been overhyped. Yes it has amazing visual effects, no wait… The movie is one big visual effect. And the action sequences we’re mediocre at best. The best bits of action was not even preformed by the protagonist, but by the antagonist! I won’t go into to much details, but for some reason I found the antagonist cooler. Now given previous hits made by Cameron, the story should have been good also. At the very least it should have been an enjoyable story to go with the (unfortunately absent…) action. But no, you could see the plot and all its nonexistent-twists coming from 2 miles away. A nice movie, but not worth the hype is has caused.
Now Sherlock Holmes, wow, what a surprise. This movie is by all means more true to the original books then all other movies. Robert Downey Jr. portrayal of the titular character is astounding! An eccentric, socially rude/inept, deducing genius… with an ego the size of Alaska and hobbies and habits for most people would be locked up in an asylum. His tendencies towards substance abuse and a history of bare knuckle brawling and even the combat style he uses, coincide with the original Sherlock Holmes. True to the original Sherlock Holmes stories, the plotline is told in such a way that in the end you say to yourself: “So that’s what happened!” Allot of the cases Sherlock Holmes encounters in the original stories are believed to be commit by some supernatural means, and all the people involved start to believe it, even the reader is left wondering whether or not something supernatural is going on, except for Holmes… Who in the end of course proof that it was all trickery. A similar theme returns in the movie. Watson isn’t a bumbling oaf which was popularized by the earlier Sherlock Holmes movies, but indeed a former military man, with a sound intellect and pretty capable in a physical confrontation.
I can go on about it, but it boils down to this. Do you want to see a visual effect stretched out over 2,5 hours of predictable plotline and only a couple of minutes of good action… Go see Avatar. Want to see a fun action/mystery with a good plotline, pretty good action scenes and unexpecting twists. Go see Sherlock Holmes.
Your opinion on this subject or is there another movie you’d like to discuss, feel free to post!
