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usuallyhats
Have seen Sherlock. After reading many words about it on the internets and thinking about them and it, am still trying to decide whether I liked it or not; I did enjoy it, but there were things I didn't like, and things I haven't quite worked out what I think about yet.
- If they never use the word "text" again it will be too soon. I agree that Holmes would've been ALL OVER texting (he can be as vague and peremptory as he likes and blame it on the format!) but it did get on my nerves rather a lot. "I shall TEXT someone." "Look, I have got a TEXT." "We are TEXTING the murderer." etc etc etc
- Modern AU, and the leads are still both white men? *sigh*
- Mr. Cumberbatch is indeed an excellent Holmes, though, and lots of fun to watch. I cannot judge Martin Freeman, though, as I have an irrational dislike of him (on screen! I'm sure he's perfectly nice in real life) and it is getting in the way.
- I wish they would cut it out with the "everyone assumes they're a couple, isn't that hilarious!" bits. I've been trying to articulate why I disliked this so much; apologies for going on a bit. I think that for the "everyone thinks X and Y are a couple!" joke to work, it relies on either a) the reactions of X and Y to that assumption being inherently funny (usually because it's so over the top) or b) the audience to know that X and Y being a couple is a ridiculous idea. (Or both, of course.) And I feel like if X and Y are a man and a woman, the audience knowing that the idea of them being a couple is ridiculous relies on knowledge of the characters and their relationship to each other - i.e., we know that they are related, or seeing other people, or secretly hate each other, or are just plain incompatible. Whereas if X and Y are both men (or both women, though this is rarer simply because there are fewer female characters on TV/in films, which is another rant for another day), more often it feels like this is presented as a ridiculous idea because they're not gay and the idea that they might be is funny in itself. And this is... tiresome, to say the least. I also feel like the "everyone assumes their gay!" thing is used so that the producers can go "look how modern and progressive we are, acknowledging the existence of gay people" without actually having to, y'know, include gay characters. (This is something that I've been reaching Critical Annoyance Mass on recently - Sherlock's by no means the worst offender but it is, unfortunately, the most recent and therefore the one bearing the brunt of my rage.) Of course this may all be moot: I've seen a few theories around that since the "someone thinks X and Y are a couple" is sometimes used to foreshadow X and Y getting together, that might be the case here too. Which would be awesome. (I would also be delighted with an explicitly asexual Holmes, which I think they were hinting at but hadn't quite got to).
- Not terribly impressed with Watson's limp being all in his mind, though I did enjoy the "where were you actually shot?" bit.
- I liked all the ladies and wished they had bigger parts, especially Molly and Anthea.
- Lots of great lines, too, but I expect that from Moffat. "So I'm basically filling in for your skull?", "I'm in shock; look, I've got a blanket!" Also the drugs bust scene was awesome.
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Date: 28 Jul 2010 14:33 (UTC)A generder-swaped sherlock holms would be awesome
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Date: 28 Jul 2010 15:17 (UTC)*goes to an imaginary casting place*
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Date: 28 Jul 2010 15:21 (UTC)no subject
Date: 28 Jul 2010 15:31 (UTC)Or Anna Torv (lead in Fringe), or Joanne Kelly (lead in Warehouse 13), or Amanda Tapping (whom I've only seen in Sanctuary)...
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Date: 28 Jul 2010 15:32 (UTC)Adn who would you cast for wastoson...?
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Date: 28 Jul 2010 17:43 (UTC)Hmm, I think I'd cast Daniel Anthony (aka Clyde Langer in SJA). After all, if I'm going so wildly AU, I might as well go the whole hog and cast an actor of colour to be a Watson to a Holmes of colour!
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Date: 28 Jul 2010 17:57 (UTC)Daniel is a boy, were gender-swapping the cast, remember?
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Date: 28 Jul 2010 18:01 (UTC)Um, you said a "gender swapped Sherlock Holmes" - I didn't realise you wanted to GS both Holmes and Watson...
So, in that case, I'll go with
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Date: 28 Jul 2010 18:16 (UTC)freema to have UST withgirl!watson?no subject
Date: 28 Jul 2010 18:20 (UTC)Ho-hum - it needs to be someone of a similar age to Freema, really - and I'm struggling to think of any female actors whom I know who're in the right age range...
Oh! It turns out Anna Torv *is* Freema's age - and Anna does smokin' hawt girl!UST very well - as I know from watching the first season of Mistresses...
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Date: 28 Jul 2010 18:38 (UTC)watson should dress like that too :D
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Date: 28 Jul 2010 18:42 (UTC)Guh, my brain's melting at the mere thought...
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Date: 28 Jul 2010 18:57 (UTC)*_*
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Date: 28 Jul 2010 19:05 (UTC)no subject
Date: 28 Jul 2010 19:06 (UTC)WHICH EP DO I START AT?
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Date: 28 Jul 2010 19:09 (UTC)Episode 2 is when she enters the series...
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Date: 28 Jul 2010 19:10 (UTC)I'm on it
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Date: 28 Jul 2010 16:20 (UTC)I wish I knew! Then I could persuade myself out of it. I think he's just had the misfortune to be in a few things that I've been irritable at (because I didn't like them as much as I wanted to, like the Hitchhiker's film, or because they got talked up a lot but I wasn't keen, like The Office and Love, Actually), and has ended up taking more of the blame in my mind than is entirely fair! I am still hoping that Sherlock will cure me...
it was 90 minutes of what my friend Juliet calls popcorn telly (ie switch off the brain and pass the popcorn)
Yeah, on that level I really liked it - it was very entertaining!
for some reason, with Holmes, that doesn't work for me (not yet figured out why!).
It's weird, isn't it? Sometimes "it was the times" works, but other times... not so much.
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Date: 28 Jul 2010 17:47 (UTC)Yeah, on that level I really liked it - it was very entertaining!
Yes!
It's weird, isn't it? Sometimes "it was the times" works, but other times... not so much.
Yeah - I don't know why it doesn't work with Holmes, because it works with everything else of that era. o_O
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Date: 28 Jul 2010 16:53 (UTC)no subject
Date: 28 Jul 2010 20:38 (UTC)SPOILERS!
Date: 29 Jul 2010 04:00 (UTC)I enjoyed it, but I was surprised that Mycroft was out and about. Surely he's much more sedentary. I'm certainly giving it another go.
Re: SPOILERS!
Date: 29 Jul 2010 20:11 (UTC)I haven't read any of the stories Mycroft appears in so I didn't spot that, but yes, you're right...
Re: SPOILERS!
Date: 29 Jul 2010 22:31 (UTC)I suppose they had to have him away from his comfort zone if they wanted us to thin k he was Moriarty. Of course it made more sense that it was Mycroft who could use the CCTV cameras; it did puzzle me at the time but I didn't twig.
Normally I don't like devices that throw me out, like shaky camera work and lens flare, but I rather liked the text on screen and the street chase map. Certainly the whole things was mobile-based; maybe the next story will choose something else to focus on. That stuff has to be done well to work with me, like Francis Urquhart in House of Cards talking to the viewer which I normally don't like; I loved his snide asides.
Re: SPOILERS!
Date: 30 Jul 2010 13:30 (UTC)but I rather liked the text on screen and the street chase map.
Me too; I thought it worked really well as a way of illustrating how Sherlock's mind worked. I don't mind devices like that if they work with rather than against) the story (and don't make me feel seasick!).
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Date: 30 Jul 2010 23:03 (UTC)no subject
Date: 2 Aug 2010 15:11 (UTC)no subject
Date: 30 Jul 2010 23:18 (UTC)To address the "white" and the "men" respectively, he leads are someone whose brother is way high up in the government and a front-line soldier in a current war. Well, duh.
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Date: 2 Aug 2010 15:12 (UTC)