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DVDfever.co.uk – Sherlock Holmes Blu-ray reviewDom Robinson reviews
Warner Home VideoBlu-ray: 
DVD:
Soundtrack:
- Cert:
- Running time: 128 minutes
- Cat no.: 1000121781
- Year: 2009
- Released: May 2010
- Region(s): 12, PAL
- Chapters: 30
- Picture: 1080p High Definition
- Sound: DTS 5.1 HD-MA, DTS 5.1, Dolby Surround
- Languages: English
- Subtitles: English, Castilian Spanish, Dutch, French, German, Italian.
- Widescreen: 1.78:1 (16:9)
- 16:9-Enhanced: Yes
- Macrovision: Yes
- Disc Format: BD50
- Price: £26.99 (Blu-ray); £19.99 (DVD)
- Extras: Featurettes: Drawbridges and Doilies: Designing a Late Victorian London, Not a Deerstalker Cap in sight, Ba-Ritsu: A Tutorial, Elementary English: Perfecting Sherlock’s Accent,The One That Got Away, Powers of Observation and Deduction, The Sherlockians,Future Past, Behind The Story – Sherlock Holmes: Reinvented, Maxmium Movie ModeAudio descriptive track
- Vote and comment on this film:View Comments
Directors:
- Guy Ritchie
(Excalibur (2012), Gamekeeper, The Hard Case, Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, Revolver, RockNRolla, Sherlock Holmes, Snatch, Swept Away)
Producers:
- Susan Downey, Dan Lin, Joel Silver and Lionel Wigram
Screenplay:
- Michael Robert Johnson, Anthony Peckhamand Simon Kinberg
Music:
- Hans Zimmer
Cast :
- Sherlock Holmes: Robert Downey Jr
Dr John Watson: Jude Law
Irene Adler: Rachel McAdams
Lord Blackwood: Mark Strong
Inspector Lestrade: Eddie Marsan
Dredger: Robert Maillet
Mrs Hudson: Geraldine James
Mary Morstan: Kelly Reilly
Constable Clark: William Hoston
Lord Coward: Hans Matheson
Sir Thomas Rotheram: James Fox
Ambassador Standish: William Hope
Captain Philips: James A. Stephens
Palm Reader: Bronagh Gallagher
In years gone by, Sherlock Holmes smoked a pipe and spoke in a very posh English accent. Now he’s doing the samebut he’s played by New Yorker Robert Downey Jr, an actor who always gives good value.
Lord Blackwood (Mark Strong) is the baddie of the piece and gets arrested for putting a young woman throughsome sort of black magic sacrifice ritual, after previously killing five women. His last request before being hung isto see Sherlock Holmes and he tells him about some things that are yet to happen, even though he won’t be out and aboutto cause them, so how does he know and what will Holmes make of it? Enter Irene Adler (Rachel McAdams), Holmes’ex who comes back into his life, asking him to look someone up…
Normally, Holmes and Watson would go about solving crimes together, but Watson (Jude Law) is about to move out of221B Baker Street, something that you know just won’t happen because that is precisely where Sir Arthur Conan Doylemade the man’s residence. We also see Holmes, himself, as a prize fighter, a drunk and someone who embarks on bizarreexperiments at home.
Sherlock Holmes looks fantastic and authentic and there’s a great “saving the damsel in distress”-type scene later onwith some brilliant action scenes included along the way courtesy of Director of Photography Phillipe Rousselot,but overall it’s underwritten, overlong, overplayed and mostlytedious. What a great shame. It plays like a knockabout comedy with Downey Jr, initially, at his madcap best in thedeliriously offbeat titular role. He has a lot of charm to his character, but after a while it gets too repetitive and thecharm wore off on this viewer as the film just goes on far too long. It should’ve been cut down to around 90 minutes,instead of a meandering 130 mins, as there’s loads that could be trimmed, and what’s actually in there just isn’tparticularly interesting and the pair of them start to behave like the Avengers, almost in a 1998-movie-type of way.
Then again, this could’ve been even worse… like Young Sherlock Holmes and the Pyramid of Fear.
Of the supporting cast, Jude Law still couldn’t act his way out of a paper bag, Mark Strong is nicely nasty as the evilLord Blackwood but it’s still a very one-dimensional character, Eddie Marsan plays Lestrade, from Scotland Yard,but doesn’t get enough screen time, too often losing out to the constables below him, there’s a moderately amusingpunch-up scene with a big bastard called Dredger (Robert Maillet) and a blink-and-you’ll-miss-her moment fromGeraldine James as the housekeeper. McAdams is very cute in her love interest role and far more interesting towatch than the similarly-faced, but can’t act for toffee, Rachel Weisz.
The film is presented in 1.78:1 (16:9) and is anamorphic. The box states it’s the very similar 1.85:1 but there’s definitelyno sign of very small black bars you’d normally see on such a film. Generally, the picture is sharp and detailed andlooks fantastic, but on the downside, every few minutes the film ‘freezes’ for a split second while thesound continues. It’s not during one of the arty moments, so it’s clearly not intentional and is a fault of the disc butone I’ve never seen in a Blu-ray before. I replayed the moments where a couple of them happened and it was still present,so it’s not a temporary glitch.For the record, I’m watching on a Panasonic 37″ Plasma screen via a Samsung BD-P1500 Blu-ray player.
The sound is in DTS-HD MA 5.1, although I only had access to it in DTS 5.1, and is mostly used for dialogue, soundtrackand ambience, as well as the occasional gunplay and surround moment with no issues at all. It’s far from a demo discand even an explosive moment later on in the film is incredibly downplayed when I’d rather they’d have let rip.
The extras are as follows, starting with a series of ‘Focus Points’, i.e. featurettes:
- Drawbridges and Doilies: Designing a Late Victorian London (5:00): A featurette that does what it says on the tin, with several commenting crew led by production designerSarah Greenwood.
- Not a Deerstalker Cap in sight (4:15): Another featurette, this time mostly from costumer designer Jenny Beaven.
- Ba-Ritsu: A Tutorial (3:58): A ‘how to’ for all of Holmes’ martial arts action.
- Elementary English: Perfecting Sherlock’s Accent (4:04): Downey Jr’s from New York, but he certainly doesn’t sound it in this film.
- The One That Got Away (3:44): How Rachel McAdams’ character relates to the author’s novel “A Scandal in Bohemia”.
- Powers of Observation and Deduction (4:01): Producer Lionel Wigram talks about all the elements of the film that refer back to Holmes’ origins.
- The Sherlockians (3:03): Experts at a ‘Sherlockian’ character talk about why the man is one of fiction’s most-loved characters.
- Future Past (3:08): The process of creating a period piece from scratch.
- Behind The Story – Sherlock Holmes: Reinvented (14:06): Separate from the Focus Points, Ritchie and Downey Jr talk about how they brought the famous sleuth to the screen,along with comments from other key cast and crew members.
- Maximum Movie Mode: Watch the film as an ‘interactive viewer experience’ including walk-ons with Guy Ritchie, Focus Points, Picture-in-Picture,Storyboard comparisons, Stills Galleries and more.
- Audio descriptive track: Does what it says on the tin.
So, a series of short but intriguing extras for casual fans of the film, plus a load of extra bits of pieces for thosewho really want to know a fair bit more. Not a massive set by any means, but it gives you a flavour of how things wentduring filming.
The menu features incidental music from the film against a rather dull static background of the two leads, almost asper the front cover of the box, although Watson isn’t wearing his bowler hat. The box itself is inside a cardboard coverwith a hologram sleeve that shows both the lead actors separately.There are subtitles in English, Castilian Spanish, Dutch, French, German and Italian.The film’s chaptering is spot-on with a great selection of 30 across the 128-minute running time. All other distributorstake note – that’s the way to do it!
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Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.