Bad Boys in Tweed

Sherlock Holmes Reviewed
I’ll admit it, I’m not a Guy Ritchie fan. I understand that a lot of people adore Lock Stock and Snatch, they were simply not my cup of tea, so when I heard he was doing Sherlock Holmes, it brought about the same kind of vomit inducing reaction as hearing that Russell Crowe is doing Robin Hood. Then the hateful gods of film piled Jude Law in there as well, HORROR, BLASPHEMY, BASTARDS and many other vile expressions were produced in my mind. While not a hard core, I have read every book Conan Doyle wrote I am a solid Holmes fan and was sitting in my highest state of judgement about the casting of this film.


Having convinced the man to ditch his family on Boxing Day (British public holiday after Christmas) we headed off with a tiny bit of hope that perhaps beloved return to screen star Jnr would manage to induce some joy out of this terrible adaption.

GOOD GOD WAS I WRONG!! from the first shot I was in love with this rip roaring, gun toting, pipe smoking, tweed wearing epic. To say that Arrow and I enjoyed this is to say that we think Indiana Jones was just ok, I was at the edge of my seat from the word go. Law totally blew my mind, stepping out of his usual sleazy back door acting he stepped up to the role of Watson with verve and style, playing beautifully against Jnr’s drug addled genius Holmes, my favourite parts being where you would see how Holmes mind plots out each move during a fight.


Mc Addams though as much as I adore her was overtaken by Jnr in any scene they were in, she in my opinion struggled to compete with him, She did her best to stand with them all and in some ways held her own but her performance was mostly watered down, I had the thought that Rachel Wiez may have done better but that could have been because of the similarities to the Mummy. Mark Strong was fabulous as the slimey villain Lord Blackwood ( a nod to the earlier novels of Conan Doyle) His manner and utter Britishness gave him such a great presence amongst the madness of Holmes. The Fan girl in me begged for more on Moriaty and the small snippets we were given were met with gasps from Arrow and I and absolutely left us with a desire to see the second film.

Visually this film is total eye candy, from the fantastic views of the Thames to the sweeping streets of 1800s England met with the dark back alleys of the boxing houses. A glorious fan girl squeal issued forth when the camera settled on 221B Baker st, full with the mad meanderings of Holmes, that poor dog!


Overall I take my hat off, eat humble pie and generally grovel at Ritchies feet begging him for forgiveness, my initial fears were completely wiped out. This film bought me back to Indie and the mummy, epic films with great characters and fantastic stories. I would highly recommend this to everyone of all ages, huge fans or not it is a feast of a film and fabulous fun!

Talking with my mother about Iron Man 2

The following is a rather amusing conversation I had with my mother this morning...

Me: Have you seen the trailer for Iron Man 2 yet?
Mum: OOH no, is it good? the first one was wonderful

Me: Yeah it looks great, though they have screwed up Black Widow slightly for me
Mum: Who?

Me: Scarlett Johansen s character in the film
Mum: Oh is she in the film? terrible actress

Me: yup, she plays the Black Widow a character from the comics
Mum: Is there an Iron Man Comic?

Me:..........................
Mum: What? *laughs* I dont know

Me: Yes he is in a comic, he is one of the Avengers, well used to be... its hard to explain.
Mum: Who are the Avengers?

Me: A team in the comics *tries to think of someone she would know* Captain America and Spiderman are in it
Mum:Oh I never liked Captain America, but I like the Spiderman movies

Me: *sigh*
Mum: what dont be mean, you know I am silly about these things.

Me: Its ok, your lucky your not talking to Chris about it *laughs* (chris being Final Arrow)
Mum: why?

Me: Cause he would get mad at you
Mum: never he loves me

Me: ok *laughs*
Mum: Anyway why dont you like Scarlett in Iron Man

Me: the character Black Widow is a Russian, she does not have a Russian accent
Mum: oh, well thats silly, now you have ruined it for me

Me: *laughing* sorry but it does look good
Mum: Oh good, oh who was Samuel L Jackson being at the end of the first film

Me: Nick Fury
Mum: Who?

Me: SIIIIIIIIGGGGGHHHHHHHH

Mad Redhead on Kick-Ass

My film-dar has vanished this year, normally I am pretty good at calling whether or not a film is going to suck or rock, sometimes of course I am pleasantly surprised but most of the time I get it on the nose. This year my judgements have been totally off, completely vanished even, were I thought Alice in Wonderland would be another Tim Burton flop it was a winner and where I thought Kick-Ass would be a wonderful cult romp it fell on its well.. Ass.

From the moment that we were introduced to the characters I was excited, after having seen the trailer for Clash of the Titans (my eccentric taste in gigantic movie monsters ran rampant) I was in a good mood, ready for entertainment. I have tried hard to work out what exactly it was that made it so dull for me, there sitting at the directors feet was a wonderful list of characters, a fairly composite story and a couple of seasoned actors to help carry the young ones along. I had expected so much more from Vaughn, the producer of Lock Stock, Mean Machine and Snatch and the director of Stardust, seemed to have such a wonderful sense of the ridiculous. Obviously he has been sitting at Guy Ritchies feet far too long and had picked up his inability to get a film moving without guns and blood.

I could happily sit here and go on about the inanely boring narrative, the slow moving direction and the inability to draw out of his actors a glimmer of excitement for their characters but I will simply tell you this, go see it if you are ready for the comic to be better.
I have read reviews recently proclaiming its “originality” its “shock factor” it’s “up yours to the superhero genre” It is nothing new, we saw a young girl with a gun in Leon, we have seen the average man being a hero in The Greatest American Hero (granted he had a special power suit) and as an up yours to the Superhero genre I can kind of see but mostly it just seemed like a wank fest for all the comic fan boys who have ever thought they could be Batman.

Right, enough of the bashing I will take a moment to talk about what I did love about the film, I loved Hit Girl, she did her best with what she had they could have given her so much more, it often felt like they held right back on her, for fear of truly pushing the boundaries of having a young girl swearing and killing. Kick-Ass was wonderfully cast; perfect blend of kind of cute geek boy and complete pussy was used to create a character I would imagine teenage boys could relate to. The action sequences were reminiscent and I think homage to John Woo with slow moving air running, guns blazing, I did laugh when Big Daddy was questioning Hit Girl and asked her what the first movie John Woo directed was.

The film lacked for me, I wanted more, I wanted better narrative and better direction, this is more Swept Away and less Stardust, try harder Mr Vaughn.