Double Vision

[SnakeoilSage]

When are we gonna get beyond this quasi-steampunk nonsense? It's ridiculous, unnecessary, and overlaps some actual, historically accurate aspects of the era that people might be interested in seeing if you weren't replacing them with the INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION'S ANSWER TO IMPERIAL STORM TROOPERS.

Even Captain America is guilty of this. We get it, the war was fought and won, but it wasn't like the average GI had to fight cyborgs that shoot demons. You can make a plot (cliched as it is) like kick-starting WWI (or II) without having to resort to this. Hell, the movie would be more interesting if it didn't. But thinking is hard, so robots, won't you?

 

[LobsterFeng]

Even Captain America is guilty of this. We get it, the war was fought and won, but it wasn't like the average GI had to fight cyborgs that shoot demons. You can make a plot (cliched as it is) like kick-starting WWI (or II) without having to resort to this. Hell, the movie would be more interesting if it didn't. But thinking is hard, so robots, won't you?

I'm pretty sure the Captain America movie was just following the craziness from the comics. Just sayin'.

 

[SnakeoilSage]

I'm pretty sure the Captain America movie was just following the craziness from the comics. Just sayin'.

http://blip.tv/at4w/captain-america-comics-1-5773562

Linkara, nationally pitied comic book expert, discusses the first Captain America comic. I rest my case.

 

[Vausch]

Except for the fact that Holmes wasn't terrible, it was perfectly serviceable and it maintained a style that everyone asked for more of. Holmes maintained its style and created an interesting set of action pieces. I was more entertained by this than I have been by other movies of late.

Also, why is it always so bad to play what you're good at playing?

Seconded.

I whole-heartedly disagree with you on Holmes there, Bob. Then again I'm on the positive end of the "Mixed" reviews. I love when Holmes does the prediction-deduction ability of his, and for the record he does it only 1 actual time. Minor spoiler that won't ruin anything but I'll put it in anyway,

Spoiler

he predicts 3 times, he fights 1 time

The first movie did it 2 or 3 times in full if memory serves.

 

[Aiddon_v1legacy]

If I want GOOD Sherlock Holmes I'll watch BBC's Sherlock (the second season of which starts next spring). Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman have GREAT chemistry as Holmes and Watson and the plots never come off as forced-action schlock

 

[anthony87]

EDIT: about Sherlock 2 being bad - NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO, damn you cruel destiny, I have been looking forward to this movie for such a long time, I really liked the first one, might be one of the movies I watched the most times, I even watched for last New year. God damn it all to hell.

Jesus dude, if you liked the first one there's no reason to not see the second one. What, Moviebob didn't like it? So what? You'll probably love it.

 

[Darth_Dude]

Well I just saw MIssion Impossible 4 tonight, and well, I thought it was good?

:3 I hope I'm not the only one..

 

[Jungy 365]

Interesting that you didn't enjoy Holmes 2. I saw it this afternoon and really enjoyed it. Having read through your article I can definitely see why you thought it was bad - they might have overused the thinking out the battle before it happens thing a bit too much. However, I thought it improved on the original, as the villain in the first never really felt like much of a threat, as it was obvious that his whole black magic thing would be a traditional 'cheap tricks to scare people until Holmes works it out' arc, which sort of undermined everything he did. Moriarty in comparison, though admittedly not the best Moriarty I've seen (see BBC's 'Sherlock'), was a genuine challenge to Holmes, and the final conflict was a clever reworking of the final conflict between Sherlock Holmes and Moriarty in the original stories. I personally enjoyed the fight scenes, as they broke things down into the piece-by-piece analysis inherent in any Holmes narrative. I never felt confused during the fight scenes - everything was clear and well-constructed.
Having said all that, it's certainly a film which I can easily see as having divided reception, and I enjoy reading constructive criticism to something I enjoyed and otherwise wouldn't have examined in such a way. Thanks Bob.

 

[Arppis]

I'm still going to see Sherlock Holmes 2. I enjoyed the first movie a lot.

 

[RA92]

Wait, MI4 has a 95% on Rotten Tomatoes? Crap, that's more than Tropic Thunder. :/

 

[LobsterFeng]

I'm pretty sure the Captain America movie was just following the craziness from the comics. Just sayin'.

http://blip.tv/at4w/captain-america-comics-1-5773562

Linkara, nationally pitied comic book expert, discusses the first Captain America comic. I rest my case.

What case is that, exactly?

 

[algalon]

Holy bugged forums Batman. I couldn't read the posts before posting. Oh, went to see Holmes tonight. I liked it. I should've expected the last part but somehow I forgot the tell 30 minutes prior. Oh and SPOILER Irene dies. I expected it to be a bit more dramatic, maybe a shot from that gun Moriarti kept holstered under his wrist in the first movie. Haven't seen MI 4. Don't expect that I'll bother since the second and third movies were very forgettable.

 

[Inkidu]

Well, I watched Sherlock Holmes: AGoS, and it was absolutely fantastic, and yes I watch more than one movie a year. So, Bob, that's your last ball dropped on me. I still like the Big Picture though, so see you Tuesday.

 

[Berithil]

Holy bugged forums Batman. I couldn't read the posts before posting. Oh, went to see Holmes tonight. I liked it. I should've expected the last part but somehow I forgot the tell 30 minutes prior. Oh and

Spoiler: SPOILER

Irene dies. I expected it to be a bit more dramatic, maybe a shot from that gun Moriarti kept holstered under his wrist in the first movie.

Haven't seen MI 4. Don't expect that I'll bother since the second and third movies were very forgettable.

You should put that spoiler tags, like so.

Anyway, I saw Sherlock Holmes today, and I have to say I really enjoyed it, possibly more than the first one. I thought that the mental game of chess was really cool. Sure, it wasn't Oscar material, but it was heck of alot better than alot of movies this year

 

[SnakeoilSage]

What case is that, exactly?

That Captain America didn't get his start fighting Nazi steampunk warbots, and the Red Skull wasn't some mad scientist building ray guns with alien technology. Even though super-science is involved, his origin story practically breezes over the fact to focus on Captain America hunting Nazi saboteurs on American soil.

 

[Fasckira]

Judge Dredd had the malfunctioning tech bit, to the point that whenever Stallone got one you were like, "Oh, whens it going to fail this time?".

Shame about Holmes 2 being a let down but then I think that was a kind of given from the outset.

 

[Zom-B]

Hmm, I was actually hoping the Sherlock Holmes movie would be good.

Then again, this is the same guy that thought District 9 and Sucker Punch were good movies, so I'm going to listen to a few more reviews before I decide for sure.

So wait, are you saying District 9 was not good? Did we watch teh same movie? Well, to each his own I guess. I'll grant you that Sucker Punch was pretty sucky on every level but the eye candy one. And no, I'm not jsut talking about the ladies- visually it was a very striking and enjoyable movie. It's too bad they tried to shoehorn a plot in there.

 

[Falseprophet]

Except for the fact that Holmes wasn't terrible, it was perfectly serviceable and it maintained a style that everyone asked for more of. Holmes maintained its style and created an interesting set of action pieces. I was more entertained by this than I have been by other movies of late.

Also, why is it always so bad to play what you're good at playing?

I must disagree. The action sequences were so poorly edited I couldn't enjoy them. The pacing was bad--this movie was at least a half-hour too long. And the plot was meaningless:

Spoiler

World War I is still going to happen, only Moriarty won't be profiting from it. So a bunch of other war-mongers will instead, just like in actual history. Wouldn't it have been more interesting if Moriarty believed by manipulating the course of the war he could have minimized the death and suffering? Maybe by forcing Europe into war early before some of WWI's most devastating weapons were developed?

Because in this film, we have a colossal intellect, capable of rivalling Holmes, and his grand scheme is to make a lot of money over several years and millions of dead bodies? Surely someone that smart could have found easier, more efficient ways of getting rich if that's all he wanted.

The things this movie had going for it were the interactions between Holmes and Watson, and the fact it had 100% more Stephen Frye than the first one. Those scenes were all gold. There just weren't enough of them. They kept shoehorning in more poorly-edited action scenes instead.

Now playing the part of Kate Beckinsale is Noomi Rapace. I have to know, did she also pull out her weapons overly-dramatic and then never use them? That poster looks ripped right out of Van Helsing.

She uses them once in her introductory scene--which is admittedly pretty cool--and then basically becomes the plot device that moves Holmes and Watson to the next part of the plot.

 

[The Wykydtron]

I loved the new Sherlock, but then again i always love the whole "two guys have an epic battle of wits with really high stakes"

See Death Note, Code Geass etc etc

Also is it actually possible to have a game of mind chess like in the final battle? It started an argument between by ex-Chess champion friend over whether it was possible.

Then again he doesn't "get" artistic licence.

And Chess always crops up in these kind of things, what no other symbolic games to choose from? Try Starcraft 2, science has proven it's better than Chess after all.

 

[BrotherRool]

I really enjoyed Sherlock Holmes 2 and although I can see and recognise it's flaws as a movie it's superior in every way to the first movie. I don't know why you would watch the first now when you can watch the second. They toned down the stupid and the magic from the first, upped the character and display of actual intelligence. Gave it a plot and villains who were fairly interesting (or a henchman that was fairly interesting) and made it look prettier.

The first half was slow and could have done with the extraction of all fight scenes and naked jokes. Particularly the fight scenes because it would have made the climax seem a lot better, but I loved the way they showed the final fight between Holmes and Moriarty. Just two ridiculously intelligent people being intelligent to each other and calculating the odds and in the end Holmes wins because he has purer motive in a way that was described at the start of the book.

I thought the tone was surprisingly appropriate and they managed to convey the back and forth, the grand scale of moriarty's plan and how run down Sherlock was pretty well.

Mission Impossible 4 and Sherlock Holmes 2 are so similar, it's spooky.

I watched the old Mission Impossible series as a kid (Sesame Street was for pussies ), and it occurred to me that the individual stories they had for those eps were far better than the main plots for all the Mission Impossible movies and Sherlock Holmes combined.

Granted the t.v series required a little more thinking to follow the story as it unfolded, especially some of the eps that featured move counter-move chess styled thinking, so I wonder now if "modern" audiences are incapable of thinking in these terms or being able to follow such a "complex" story?

Before we get all 'modern audiences are dumb' the original story just had Holmes _saying_ that him and Moriarty had an incredible battle of wits, without actually describing it in any way at all. Maybe the audience was too dumb to understand anything clever?