Sherlock Holmes (2009 film)

Sherlock Holmes
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Guy Ritchie
Produced by	Joel Silver Lionel Wigram Susan Downey Dan Lin
Screenplay by	Michael Robert Johnson Anthony Peckham Simon Kinberg
Story by	Lionel Wigram Characters: Arthur Conan Doyle
Starring	Robert Downey, Jr. Jude Law Rachel McAdams Mark Strong
Music by	Hans Zimmer
Cinematography	Philippe Rousselot
Editing by	James Herbert
Studio	Silver Pictures Village Roadshow Pictures
Distributed by	Warner Bros. Pictures
Release date(s)	December 24, 2009 (2009-12-24) December 25, 2009 (2009-12-25) (United States) December 26, 2009 (2009-12-26) (United Kingdom)
Running time	128 minutes
Country	United States United Kingdom
Language	English
Budget	$90 million[1]
Gross revenue	$523,029,864[2]
Followed by	Sherlock Holmes 2

Sherlock Holmes is a 2009 action mystery film based on the character of the same name created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The film was directed by Guy Ritchie and produced by Joel Silver, Lionel Wigram, Susan Downey and Dan Lin. The screenplay by Michael Robert Johnson, Anthony Peckham and Simon Kinberg was developed from a story by Lionel Wigram and Michael Robert Johnson. Robert Downey, Jr. and Jude Law portray Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John Watson, respectively. Holmes investigates a series of murders, apparently connected to occult rituals. Lord Blackwood is the mysterious villain who has apparently risen from the dead after execution. The story culminates with a confrontation on top of Tower Bridge, still under construction.

The film went on general release in the United States on December 25, 2009, and on December 26, 2009, in the UK, Ireland, and the Pacific.^[3] The film was also nominated for two Academy Awards, Best Original Score and Best Art Direction, which it lost to Up and Avatar, respectively.

Plot

In 1891 London, Sherlock Holmes (Robert Downey, Jr.) and Dr. John 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 before Inspector 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.

Three days later, Holmes receives a surprise visit at 221B Baker Street from Irene Adler (Rachel McAdams), a professional thief and his former adversary, 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, but Holmes is only able to determine that he is a professor and has Adler on edge.

Shortly afterwards, 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, a secret magical organization. The leaders, Sir Thomas (James Fox) and Home Secretary Lord Coward (Hans Matheson), ask Holmes to stop Blackwood, a former member of the Order and, as Holmes deduces from physical similarities, Sir Thomas' son. 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 has been in league with Blackwood all along, issues a warrant for Holmes' arrest.

The finale is on the unfinished Tower Bridge.

When Holmes learns he is wanted by the police he goes into hiding and studies Blackwood's rituals, concluding that 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 realize their plan has failed. Coward is captured but Blackwood manages to escape.

Holmes confronts Adler on top of the incomplete Tower 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. He cuts Blackwood free but the mastermind moves in to shoot Holmes. Before he can, a loose beam of metal falls off the rafter supports, causing Blackwood to fall on to a bed of chains, which break. The entangled Blackwood, with a noose of chains around his neck, falls from the bridge and is hanged.

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.

Cast

McAdams and Downey, Jr. at a panel to promote the film at the 2009 San Diego Comic-Con

• Robert Downey, Jr. as Sherlock Holmes. A conceited detective-for-hire who becomes a wanted fugitive. Downey was visiting Joel Silver's offices with his wife, producer Susan Downey, when he learned about the project.^[4] Ritchie initially felt Downey was too old for the role because he wanted the film to show a younger Holmes on a learning curve like Batman Begins.^[5] Ritchie decided to take a chance on casting him in the role, and Downey told the BBC that "I think me and Guy are well-suited to working together. The more I look into the books, the more fantastic it becomes. Holmes is such a weirdo".^[6] Downey also revealed what his wife had to say: "that when you read the description of the guy  — quirky and kind of nuts — it could be a description of me".^[7] Downey intended to focus more on Holmes' patriotic side and his bohemianism, and felt that his work on Chaplin has prepared him for an English accent.^[8] Ritchie feels his accent is "flawless".^[9] Both Downey and Ritchie are martial arts enthusiasts, and have been inspired by the Bartitsu mentioned in the 1901 story The Adventure of the Empty House.^[10] Downey lost weight for the part, because during a chat he had with Chris Martin, Martin recommended that Holmes look "gaunt" and "skinny".^[11][12]
• Jude Law as Dr. John Watson, Holmes' ally and friend, who is also a surgeon and a war veteran. Law's Watson is more like the original character, who was more of a colleague, rather than the bumbling fool that actor Nigel Bruce popularised in the 1930s–40s films.^[13] Law previously appeared in the Granada Television series The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, in an episode based on The Adventure of Shoscombe Old Place. Being a Holmes fan, Law recognised there was material unexplored in other adaptations and was intrigued by Downey's casting; Law was cast because he had a positive meeting with Downey and concurred the film would have to explore Holmes and Watson's friendship. Downey believed by emphasizing Watson's qualities as a former soldier, a doctor, a womaniser and a gambler, it would make for a more interesting foil for Holmes.^[14] Law made a notebook of phrases from the stories to improvise into his dialogue.^[15] Ritchie originally envisioned Russell Crowe in the role.^[16]
• Mark Strong as Lord Henry Blackwood, the main antagonist. An aristocratic serial killer dabbling in the occult to compel others to do his bidding. Strong worked with director Ritchie for the third time and said he appreciates the director's lack of ego and how easy he is to work with.^[17][18]
• Rachel McAdams as Irene Adler, a femme fatale from New Jersey who outwitted Holmes twice.^[13] In the film, Adler is no longer married to Godfrey Norton and needs Holmes' help for the case.^[14] Downey convinced Ritchie to cast McAdams, arguing she would not look too young to be his love interest.^[19]
• Kelly Reilly as Mary Morstan. Watson wishes to marry her, causing a conflict with Holmes.^[7]
• Eddie Marsan as Inspector Lestrade.^[20]
• Hans Matheson as Lord Coward, the Home Secretary. Blackwood's right-hand man, who assisted Blackwood in all his murders and was the only one of his allies aware of Blackwood's usage of technology to feign magical powers.
• Geraldine James as Mrs. Hudson, Sherlock Holmes' landlady.
• James Fox as Sir Thomas Rotheram, father of Lord Blackwood and Head of the Four Orders.
• Robert Maillet as Dredger, a French speaking henchman working for Blackwood.^[21]
• William Hope as American Ambassador John Standish.

Director Guy Ritchie declined to say who voiced the character of Professor Moriarty. Rumors suggested that the part was voiced by Brad Pitt, who has been reported to have expressed strong interest in the sequel.^[22] Actor Ed Tolputt is credited as "Anonymous Man"^[23] although it is not clear if this refers to Moriarty.^[24]

Development

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. After leaving his position as executive for Warner Bros. in 2006,^[5] Wigram sought a larger scope to the story so it could attract a large audience, and amalgamated various Holmes stories to flesh it out further.^[7] Lord Blackwood's character was developed as a nod to Victorian interests in spiritualism and the later influence of Aleister Crowley.^[25] The producer felt he was "almost clever" pitting Holmes, who has an almost supernatural ability to solve crimes, against a supposedly supernatural villain. The plot point, moreover, nods to the Holmesian tale of the The Hound of the Baskervilles, where a string of seemingly supernatural events is finally explained through intuitive reasoning and scientific savvy. Wigram wrote and John Watkiss drew a 25-page comic book about Holmes in place of a spec script.^[25] Professor Moriarty was included in the script to set up the sequels.^[26]

In March 2007, Warner Bros. chose to produce, seeing similarities in the concept with Batman Begins. 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 set to direct,^[27] but Guy Ritchie signed on to direct in June 2008.^[28] When 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.^[29] Therefore, his image of Holmes differed from the films. He wanted to make his film more "authentic" to Doyle,^[8] explaining, "There's quite a lot of intense action sequences in the stories, [and] sometimes that hasn't been reflected in the movies."^[30] 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".^[9] 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".^[30]

Production

Filming began in October 2008.^[31] The crew shot at Freemasons' Hall and St Paul's Cathedral.^[26][32] Filming was done in Manchester's Northern Quarter, while the Town Hall was used for a fight scene (which required smashing stained glass windows).^[33] They shot the opening scene for three days at St Bartholomew-the-Great church in London,^[25] and shot on the river Thames at Wapping for a scene involving a steamboat on 7 November.^[34] Filming continued at Stanley Dock and Clarence Dock in Liverpool.^[35] Street scenes were filmed in cobbled alleyways in Chatham and Manchester. Brompton Cemetery in London was used for a key scene, and the palatial 19th-century interior of the Reform Club stood in for the Café Royal. Scenes from the interior of 221B Baker Street were shot on a sound stage at Leavesden Studios.^[32]

In late November 2008, actor Robert Maillet, who played Dredger, 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.^[21] The Sun reported that on November 28, a tank truck caught fire, forcing filming to stop for two hours.^[36] 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 always have to park cars elsewhere during the shoot.^[37] In January 2009, filming moved to Brooklyn.^[38]

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 hat, a beat-up 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.^[16]

Music

Sherlock Holmes: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack
Film score by Hans Zimmer
Released	March 31, 2010
Genre	Soundtracks Film score
Length	52:29
Label	Watertower Music
Professional reviews
Allmusic Link

Director Guy Ritchie used the soundtrack from the film The Dark Knight by Hans Zimmer as temporary music during editing. Zimmer was pleased when Ritchie asked him to do the score but told him to do something completely different. Zimmer described his score to Ritchie as the sound of The Pogues joining a Romanian orchestra.^[39] For the musical accompaniment, composer Hans Zimmer used a banjo, cimbalom, squeaky violins, and a "broken pub piano". At first Zimmer had his own piano detuned, but found that it just sounded out of tune. He asked his assistant to locate a broken piano. The first piano they located was passed over as it obviously had been loved and cared for, but the second one was the one they used in the production. Zimmer said "We rented 20th Century Fox’s underground car park one Sunday and did hideous things to a piano."^[39][40]

All music composed by Hans Zimmer.

Release

The film had its world premiere on December 14, 2009, in London and was subsequently released worldwide on December 25, 2009 (December 26 in the UK and Ireland), after being pushed from a November release date.^[3] An advance charity screening was held in select locations in Belgium on December 10, 2009.^[41]

Box office

The film opened to an estimated $62.4 million in its first weekend, placing in second at the US box office to Avatar, which grossed $75.6 million. The film earned a strong per-theater average of $18,031 from its 3,626 theaters. Its one-day Christmas sales broke records. Sherlock Holmes had grossed $523,000,000 worldwide^[2] making it Guy Ritchie's biggest box-office success yet,^[42] and the 8th highest grossing film of 2009 worldwide, and domestically. On the domestic charts, it is the fourth highest grossing film to never hit #1 in the weekend box office, behind My Big Fat Greek Wedding, fellow Christmas opener Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel, and said film's predecessor.^[43] Worldwide, it is the fourth highest in this category, behind Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs, Casino Royale, and The Day After Tomorrow.

Critical response

The film has received generally positive reviews. Review aggregate Rotten Tomatoes reports that 69% of critics have given the film a positive review based on 216 reviews, with a rating average of 6.2 out of 10. The critical consensus is: Guy Ritchie's directorial style might not be quite the best fit for an update on the legendary detective, but Sherlock Holmes benefits from the elementary appeal of a strong performance by Robert Downey, Jr.^[44] Among Rotten Tomatoes' "Top Critics", which consists of popular and notable critics from the top newspapers, websites, television and radio programs, the film holds an overall approval rating of 57%, based on a sample of 37 reviews.^[45] Metacritic, which assigns a weighted average score out of 1–100 reviews from film critics, has a rating score of 57 based on 34 reviews.^[46]

Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film three out of four stars and highlighted the film's strong characters, visuals and action-packed plot;^[47] the characters were also praised by Jake Tomlinson of Shave Magazine, who believed that Downey, Jr. and Law were "perfect together" and that Strong was "a convincing and creepy villain".^[48]

A. O. Scott of the New York Times was more reserved: he noted that the director's approach to films was "to make cool movies about cool guys with cool stuff" and that Sherlock Holmes was essentially "a series of poses and stunts" which was "intermittently diverting" at best.^[49]

David Stratton of The Australian disliked the film's interpretation of the original Holmes stories and concluded, "The makers of this film are mainly interested in action; that, they believe, is all that gets young audiences into cinemas today. They may be right, but they have ridden roughshod over one of literature's greatest creations in the process." He did praise the production design and score, however.^[50]

Awards and accolades

On January 17, 2010, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association announced the winners of the 67th Golden Globe Awards with Robert Downey, Jr. winning Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy for the portrayal of Sherlock Holmes.^[51] In addition, the Broadcast Film Critics Association nominated Hans Zimmer for Best Score but lost to Up by Michael Giacchino.^[52] The film was nominated for Best Original Score and Best Art Direction at the 82nd Academy Awards. The film also won Best Thriller at the Empire Awards.

Sequel

When Guy Ritchie finished the movie, he discussed a sequel with the production team. Robert Downey, Jr., Jude Law, Rachel McAdams and the other cast members also signed up to a possible sequel; it's reported that Ritchie is considering Daniel Day-Lewis to play Professor Moriarty.^{[53][54][55][56]} Ritchie and his writers have started to work on the story and pre-production began on March 21, 2010. Sherlock Holmes 2 will be released on December 16, 2011.^[57] According to Jude Law, filming for the sequel will likely begin in October 2010. ^[58]

Home media

Sherlock Holmes was released on DVD and Blu-ray/DVD/digital on March 30, 2010 in the United States.^[59] and on May 17, 2010 in Europe.

Allusions to the original stories and earlier adaptations

Although Sherlock Holmes takes a number of liberties with the original Holmes stories, it also contains numerous references and allusions to the earlier works. The film quotes the Conan Doyle novels and stories on several occasions, including: "The game is afoot" ("The Abbey Grange," as well as the original source of the phrase, Shakespeare's Henry V); "Because I was looking for it" ("Silver Blaze"); "You have the grand gift of silence, Watson. It makes you quite invaluable as a companion" ("The Man with the Twisted Lip"); "Crime is common, logic is rare" ("The Adventure of the Copper Beeches"); "My mind rebels at stagnation. Give me problems. Give me work" (The Sign of the Four); "It makes a considerable difference to me, having someone with me on whom I can thoroughly rely" ("The Boscombe Valley Mystery"); "Data, data, data—I cannot make bricks without clay" ("The Adventure of the Copper Beeches"), "...one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts” ("A Scandal in Bohemia"), and "There is nothing more stimulating than a case where everything goes against you" ("The Hound of the Baskervilles").

The scene in which Holmes and Watson make a series of deductions from a dead man's watch closely mirrors a similar sequence in The Sign of the Four (as does Holmes' ability to follow the carriage's path whilst blindfolded), in which Holmes uses nearly identical observations (scratches around the watch's keyhole, pawnbroker's marks on the inside of the case) to deduce information from a watch belonging to Watson's late brother. Holmes's passing reference to locking Watson's chequebook in his desk parallels a similar statement in "The Adventure of the Dancing Men," which commentators such as William S. Baring-Gould have taken to mean that Watson had a gambling problem, an interpretation that the film adopts.^[60] Holmes also uses a riding crop as a weapon throughout the film, as he does in "A Case of Identity". In the Six Napoleons, it is described as his "favourite weapon".

Among other references to the earlier stories, Holmes retains the portrait of Irene Adler acquired for his services in "A Scandal in Bohemia" and also once refers to her as "woman" as he does in the latter story. The "V.R." design that Holmes shoots into the wall at Baker Street is mentioned in "The Adventure of the Musgrave Ritual," in which Watson reports that Holmes used a pistol to adorn the wall "with a patriotic V.R. [for Victoria Regina] done in bullet-pocks."^[61] The bulldog that appears throughout the movie is first referenced in A Study in Scarlet, in which Watson says "I keep a bull pup." The dog's name, Gladstone, is taken from an episode of The New Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. Although the dog is never mentioned again in the original stories, its treatment in the film recalls the speculations of commentators (as summarized by Baring-Gould) that "the pup was a victim of one of Holmes's chemical experiments...[or] the dog, unable to stand the Baker Street menage, deserted."^[62]

A number of the film's details recall "The Adventure of the Mazarin Stone." The first is the name of the primary antagonist, Lord Blackwood, which parallels that of "Mazarin Stone" villain Count Negretto Sylvius (Negretto is Italian for black and Sylvius is Latin for woods). (As Holmes scholar W. W. Roberts notes, this is "presumably a private joke at the expense of Blackwood's Magazine, long and unavailingly courted by [Conan Doyle] in the 1880s."^[63]) Another common detail is the Crown Diamond, an alternate name for the Mazarin Stone, which hangs around Irene Adler's neck in the film. "The Mazarin Stone" is also the first story to mention that the 221B Baker Street apartment had multiple exits and a waiting room. The extra exit, which was through the bedroom, is employed by Holmes to follow Irene early in the film.

The opening scene depicting Blackwood's ritual, the attempt to sacrifice an entranced maiden, is reminiscent of the rituals performed by Professor Rathe in Young Sherlock Holmes. The number of women said to be killed by Blackwood, five, also matches the number of "princesses" needed by Rathe.

The scene where Baker Street is first shown is a direct parallel of the opening credits of The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. The scene where Holmes experiments with the flies in the jar, playing the violin, is a reference to a similar scene in the 1939 picture "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes" with Basil Rathbone.

At the end of the film, Adler says to Holmes, "A storm is coming", foreshadowing the planned sequel. This line is similar to His Last Bow's "There's an east wind coming, Watson", said by Holmes at the end, subsequently described as a storm, foreshadowing World War I,^[64] and used almost verbatim at the end of Basil Rathbone's Sherlock Holmes and the Voice of Terror.^[65]

In the scene where Holmes traps houseflies in a jar and observes their behaviour when subjected to atonal clusters on a violin, Watson comments that a liquid that Holmes had been drinking was meant for eye surgery. This refers to the literary Holmes' use of cocaine, which was used as an anaesthetic in eye surgery in the 19th Century.

References

External links

• Official website
• Sherlock Holmes Filming Locations
• Sherlock Holmes at the Internet Movie Database
• Sherlock Holmes at Allmovie
• Sherlock Holmes at Rotten Tomatoes
• Sherlock Holmes at Metacritic
• Sherlock Holmes at Box Office Mojo