The End ?

“It is with a heavy heart that I take up my pen to write the last words in which I shall ever record the singular gifts by which my friend Mr. Sherlock Holmes was distinguished”… and thus, many a years back, I had been initiated into the gripping intricacies of The Final Problem. Imagine my shock when I rushed to watch the movie-version of Sherlock Holmes… and a seemingly half-witted, cantankerous chap plunged into the scene and blurted out “My name is… Sherlock Holmes”.

I jerked upright on my seat, trying to ascertain the situation. In whose imagination was this character conceived? Certainly not in Mr. Doyle’s… and hopefully not in any of us who have grown up being in awe of the great Mind. So, is this the “coming of age” of Sherlock Holmes? Our gift to a generation who prefers the easy appeal of motion picture over that of the printed words? And is that really Watson razzing with Holmes quite like that?

Now don’t blame me for comparing. If they make movies from our favourite novels, if they insist on putting faces to the characters we have always loved, then I will compare. And what right do they have to spoil my world my thrusting on me a whacko Mycroft, with an out-of-context obesity and a distasteful desire to roam about naked? That had not only ruined Mycroft for me, but also affected my visions of Sidhhu Jetha in Feluda. Somehow everything just seemed so out-of-context.

20 mins through the plot, I preferred to drift off to a blissful state of mental blankness. There's too much of Slow-Mo future fore-telling, too much of fights, for my taste. And I so missed my favourite hero who sits in his dressing gown, smoking his pipe and churning his ideas. This infinitely-more-Hollywood version prefers to smoke the cigar.

But, as it always happened in the world of Mysteries, the plot gripped me irrationally… and as the plot reached its prime, I granted the movie a second chance. Or, as Downey says, I just followed his lead! And slowly I found myself being waltzed into a world where everything looked and felt wrong, yet something quite interesting was controlling the drift. I don’t quite know when I shifted grounds and started enjoying this fanciful version of Holmes… but I found myself laughing out loud in most of the plot junctions. And how did they work out this electrifying rapport between the lead characters? The "very intimate relations" between Sherlock and Watson had somehow blended itself into this questionable-yet-enthralling bromance.

So… in an attempt to sum up, I would give the movie credit for making explicit all those aspects of the story which has always been left implicit by Mr. Doyle. The mind had played with them… on and on… and now you get the glamourized pronouncement of the same. Yet, somehow, I criticize the movie for just the same… for making us lose the subtle pleasure of it all, for damaging the imagination... ’Cause no matter how delicious the platter is to the eye, the imagination can always cook up something far better. But I do give the movie credit for the nurturing the right rhythm between Downey and Law.

So, I would rather not rate a movie like "A Game of Shadows". There are too many grey areas. And then there's Jude Law.  But, given a chance, I would probably watch the first part of this sequel… maybe just for Law and Downey. So, maybe... it's not quite 'The End' yet?