journal features

movie review - Sherlock Holmes

the journal of Michael Werneburg

twenty-seven years and one million words

Toronto, 2011.02.20

This is a liberal retelling of the classic detective story, by Guy Ritchie. It's more sizzle than steak and I found the lead so off-putting that I couldn't really get into it. I mean, Holmes is meant to be British, was it too much for the lead to attempt, or was he too strung out perhaps because he sure looked it. Anyway, the plot careers from nonsensical scene to nonsensical scene, floating on the edge of maybe getting to the point. I won't explain the end but then the film doesn't either.

Not recommended.

rand()m quote

Meaning is not something you stumble across, like the answer to a riddle or the prize in a treasure hunt. Meaning is something you build into your life. You build it out of your own past, out of your affections and loyalties, out of the experience of humankind as it is passed on to you, out of your own talent and understanding, out of the things you believe in, out of the things and people you love, out of the values for which you are willing to sacrifice something. The ingredients are there. You are the only one who can put them together into that unique pattern that will be your life. Let it be a life that has dignity and meaning for you. If it does, then the particular balance of success or failure is of less account.

—John Gardner