Sherlock Holmes is a movie released on December 25th, 2009, and directed by Guy Ritchie.
Plot
In London in 1890, Sherlock Holmes (Robert Downey, Jr.) and Dr. Watson (Jude Law) race to prevent the ritual murder of a girl by Lord Blackwood (Mark Strong), who has killed five other people similarly. They are able to stop the murder just in time beforeInspector Lestrade (Eddie Marsan) and the police arrive to make the arrest.
Three months later, Blackwood is sentenced to death and requests to see Holmes, who visits him in prison. He warns Holmes of three more impending deaths that will cause great changes to the world. Blackwood is hanged and pronounced dead by Dr. Watson. Holmes receives a surprise visit at 221B Baker Street from Irene Adler (Rachel McAdams), a professional thief and his former lover, who asks him to find a missing man named Reordan. After her departure, Holmes discreetly follows her as she meets with a man, her secret employer, hidden in the shadows of a carriage. The concealed man states that Reordan is the key to Blackwood's plans.
Three days later, Blackwood's tomb is destroyed from the inside out. Reordan is found dead inside Blackwood's coffin. A groundskeeper claims to have seen Blackwood walking from the tomb. Following a series of clues from the body, Holmes and Watson find Reordan's home and discover experiments attempting to merge science with magic. Later, Holmes is taken to the Temple of the Four Orders, an occult-dabbling secret society. The leaders, Sir Thomas (James Fox) and Home Secretary Lord Coward (Hans Matheson), ask Holmes to stop Blackwood, a former member of the Order. Sir Thomas and another senior member of the group are later killed through apparently supernatural means by Blackwood, allowing him to assume control. He plans to push for Britain to retake the United States, weakened by civil war. Lord Coward, who was in league with Blackwood all along, issues a warrant for Holmes' arrest.
When Holmes learns he is wanted by the police he goes into hiding and studies Blackwood's rituals, concluding the next target is British Parliament. Holmes tricks Lord Coward into revealing that the plan is to wipe out the House of Lords and then rejoins Adler and Watson. The three sneak into the sewers beneath Parliament and discover a machine, based on Reordan's experiments, designed to release a cyanide derivative into the Parliament chambers. They fight off Blackwood's men, and remove the cyanide containers from the machine.
Adler grabs the cylinders and races away, pursued by Holmes. Blackwood and Coward realise their plan has failed. Coward is captured but Blackwood manages to escape. Holmes confronts Adler on top of the incomplete London Bridge but is interrupted by Blackwood. Holmes tricks him into becoming entangled in the ropes and chains, hanging over the Thames while Holmes recounts the technical trickery behind all of Blackwood's supposed magic. A loose beam falls off the rafter supports, causing Blackwood to fall catching his neck around a chain and hanging himself.
Adler explains that her employer is Professor Moriarty, warning that Moriarty is every bit as intelligent as Holmes but far more devious. Later, the police report to Holmes and Watson that a dead officer was found near Blackwood's device. Professor Moriarty used the confrontations with Adler and Blackwood as a diversion while he took a key component from the machine. This prompts Holmes to accept the new case whilst refusing an offer to name his own fee.
Production
Producer Lionel Wigram remarked that for around ten years, he had been thinking of new ways to depict Sherlock Holmes. "I realized the images I was seeing in my head [when reading the stories] were different to the images I’d seen in previous films." He imagined "a much more modern, more bohemian character, who dresses more like an artist or a poet", namely Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. Wigram wrote and John Watkiss drew a 25-page comic book about Holmes in place of a spec script.[1]
In March 2007, Warner Bros. chose to produce the film, seeing similarities in the concept with w:c:batman:Batman Begins. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's estate had some involvement in sorting out legal issues, although the stories are in the public domain in the United States. Neil Marshall was initially set to direct,[2] but Guy Ritchie signed on to direct in June 2008.[3]
As a child at boarding school, Ritchie and other pupils listened to the Holmes stories through dormitory loudspeakers. "Holmes used to talk me to sleep every night when I was seven years old," he said.[4] Therefore, his image of Holmes differed from that in prior films. He wanted to make his film more "authentic" to Doyle,[5] explaining, "There's quite a lot of intense action sequences in the stories, [and] sometimes that hasn't been reflected in the movies."[6] Holmes' "brilliance will percolate into the action", and the film will show that his "intellect was as much of a curse as it was a blessing".[7] Ritchie sought to make Sherlock Holmes a "very contemporary film as far as the tone and texture", because it has been "a relatively long time since there's been a film version that people embraced".[6]
Filming began on 1 October 2008.[8] The crew shot at Freemasons' Hall and St Paul's Cathedral,[9] as well as in the catacombs under London's East End.[10]
Filming was done in Manchester's Northern Quarter, while the Town Hall was used for a fight scene (which required smashing stained glass windows).[11] They shot the opening scene for three days at St Bartholomew-the-Great church in London,[1] and shot on the river Thames at Wapping for a scene involving a steamboat on 7 November.[12] Filming continued at Stanley Dock and Clarence Dock in Liverpool.[13]
In late November 2008, stunt man Robert Maillet was filming a fight scene at Chatham Dockyard in Kent, and accidentally punched Robert Downey, Jr. in the face, causing Downey to be bloodied and knocked down, but not knocked unconscious as originally reported.[14] When filming at St John's Street in December, the schedule had to be shortened from 13 to nine days because locals complained about how they would have always have to park cars elsewhere during the shoot.[15]
In January 2009, filming moved to Brooklyn.[16]
Ritchie wanted his Holmes' costume to play against the popular image of the character, joking "there is only one person in history who ever wore" a deerstalker. Downey selected the character's fedora. The director kept to the tradition of making Holmes and Watson's apartment quite messy, and had it decorated with artifacts and scientific objects from the continents they would have visited.[17].
Cast
- Robert Downey, Jr. as Sherlock Holmes
- Jude Law as Doctor Watson
- Rachel McAdams as Irene Adler
- Mark Strong as Lord Blackwood
- Kelly Reilly as Mary Morstan
- Eddie Marsan as Inspector Lestrade
- Robert Maillet as Dredger
Posters
Images
Taglines
Holmes is talking with Watson about seeing Irene Adler and puts a violin bow to his face.
"Get that out of my face," Watson asks.
"It's not in your face, it's in my hand," Holmes replies.
"Get what's in your hand, out of my face," exclaims Watson.
This same line was used in the new Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows with the exception of Holmes saying Watson's lines and Watson in return saying Holmes's line. They are in a train and Watson mistaking Holmes for one of Morairty's men (for Holmes was in disguise), and pulls a gun on him. That is when the lines said.
Trivia
- Watson is not as bumbling as he is in the books and other adaptations of Sherlock Holmes stories, the Granada series excepted, but is calm and agreeable.
- Although he does not have a large role in the film, Holmes' archenemy Professor Moriarty, is mentioned.
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 CS on location with Sherlock Holmes Edward Douglas, ComingSoon.net, 2-5-09
- ↑ Warner Bros. gets a clue Pamela McClintock , Variety, 3-15-2007
- ↑ Elementary, my dear Ritchie Orlando Parfitt, IGN, 10-3-08
- ↑ Guy's Take On London's Gritty Underworld CBS News, 10-8-08
- ↑ itchie and Downey Jr launch new, 'authentic' Sherlock Holmes Mark Brown and Ben Child, guardian.co.uk, 10-2-08
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 Jude Law to star in Sherlock Holmes remake Anita Singh, The Independent, 9-19-08
- ↑ Sherlock Holmes? Ritchie's on the case Susan Wloszczyna, USA Today, 8-1-08
- ↑ Sherlock Starts Shooting ign.com, 10-1-08
- ↑ Cite error: Invalid
<ref>tag; no text was provided for refs namedign1 - ↑ Is That You, Sherlock?, Sarah Lyall, the New York Times, January 26, 2009
- ↑ Diary: Guy about town Kevin Bourke, Manchester Evening News 10-28-08
- ↑ Sherlock Holmes in latest mystery boat chase on Thames Victoria Huntley, East London Advertiser, 11-14-08
- ↑ Sherlock Holmes is back with stars Jude Law and Robert Downey Jr Paula Owens, Liverpool Daily Post, 11-21-08
- ↑ New Brunswick actor knocks down star Yvon Gauvin, Times & Transcript, 1-5-09
- ↑ Sherlock Holmes almost foiled in film parking row, Islington Gazette, 12-3-08
- ↑ Rachel McAdams, From Canada In My Holmes Jarett Wieselman, The New York Post, 1-9-09
- ↑ 'Sherlock Holmes': More than Elementary Susan Wloszczyna, USA Today, May 6, 2009