On the couch

It might seem unfair, inconsistent even, but this week I’m going to say pretty much the same thing about two different films – high-quality action scenes coupled with a distracting, but far from taxing, story – but in one case it’s going to be a compliment and in the other a condemnation with faint praise.

Who knew reviewers could be so fickle?
First up is Sherlock Homes: Book of Shadows, Guy Ritchie’s follow up to his incredibly successful and wildly entertaining film from 2009.
Robert Downey Jnr and Jude Law return as Holmes and Watson this time pitting their wits against Professor Moriarty, a character only hinted at in the previous flick.
Rather than keep him an evil, unseen entity lurking just out of sight, The Prof takes the form of Jared Harris – a face familiar to any fans of Fringe or Mad Men – a perfect, gentlemanly foil for Downey Jnr’s wild and unpredictable sleuth.
The story begins with Holmes even further down the crazy hole than he was in the last film. With Watson out of the picture getting ready to get hitched, Sherlock has nobody to keep him from indulging his more anti-social pursuits. He’s also been developing an elaborate conspiracy theory about an impending global disaster with Moriarty right in the middle like some sort of nefarious, beardy spider; in a top hat.
So as Watson heads off on honeymoon, Sherlock embarks on a little game of pan-European hide-and-seek with Gypsy fortune teller Simza (Noomi Rapace) whose missing brother may be the key to Moriarty’s fiendish plan.
It doesn’t take long for the poor Doctor to get roped back into the affair and the sort of romping, stomping action and adventure ensues in a variety of locations across Germany and France.
As with the original, Ritchie utilises Holmesvision™ to show how the big-brained consulting detective views the world – seeing everything 10 or 15 steps ahead of everyone else. While the effect came across as pretty clever first time around, it gets a little bit tired by the end of the second outing. It’s not the only aspect of the flick that comes across as slightly stale.
Very little about Sherlock Holmes has changed. Ritchie has wisely refrained from tinkering too much with his winning formula. Other than the addition of Mycroft Holmes, Sherlock’s older, smarter brother played by Stephen Fry – everybody’s older smarter brother – and the change in venue from London to the continent, the only thing that’s different is that a lot of the original’s charm and mystery are missing.
All the clever deduction that Holmes is famous for seems to have gone on before the film started and, for the duration of Game of Shadows, his powers of perception seem limited to helping him work out how to beat people up or be sarcastic.
The story too is less a mystery and more just a chase. The cast rollick around Europe bouncing from one extra with a bit of exposition to the next en route to foiling Moriarty’s plan. It lacks the sense of why, how or whodunnit of the last flick and it fills the silence with explosions and banter between Holmes and Watson.
Amusing banter and exciting action scenes – make no mistake – but at the expense of everything else that makes a Sherlock story really great.
A good film no doubt but try not to watch the first one too soon before or after. It’ll only disappoint you.
What a surprise Underworld: Awakening is. The fourth of the Underworld films – a series that has been the very embodiment of diminishing marginal returns, Awakening does something unusually sensible – it returns to what made the first film so successful – in this case sexy, slick action sequences combined with a silly but distracting story.
Another smart move by Awakening is that the story, which takes place about 12 years after the end of the last film is that the humans have become the new bad guys.
A quick round-up of the story so far reveals that as soon as the world became aware of the existence of vampires and werewolves (lycans) a savage dose of “cleansing” began, forcing the supernatural sorts – the ones who survived – underground.
An unfortunate run-in with a flash-freezing grenade sees Selene (Kate Beckinsale) turned into a vampsicle only to be revived 12 years later to find the world turned upside down, her fella dead or missing and apparently the proud owner of a teenage daughter borne in the lab by some sinister scientists.
A few more twists and turns later sees Selene on the path of vengence against the bio-tech company that kept her in the freezer. As with all Underworld films, it rains a lot and everyone, even the humans, look angry and half dead. It’s all part of the film;s charm though.
As with Sherlock, Awakening features some quality thrills of the surprisingly gritty, gory kind. Beckinsale is never going to be an Oscar winner but she does the job of the steely Selene well and her co-stars are similarly well suited to their roles.
While Sherlock ends up being a bit disappointing because it doesn’t rise to the same vertiginous heights of the first film, Underworld: Awakening isn’t nearly as messy or annoying as the films that came before, making it look all the shinier in its overall adequacy.
Good, dumb, fun.