Sherlock Holmes, whee!

[azurelunatic]

I went and saw the new Sherlock Holmes movie with gameboyguy13, teshiron, cleverthylacine, and jamoche, on the 26th. We had a great deal of fun.

I reviewed the movie (spoilers ahoy) for bechdel_test (which it does not pass). Despite that, I enjoyed it for what it was.

OMG SO MARRIED. So there's no deerstalker cap. That was a bit of a disappointment, but the HAIR, the WILD AND CRAZY HAIR, that made up for it. And Watson. OMG WATSON.

I liked the way Holmes's fighting was handled. It wasn't just smack-smack-smack-punch-here-is-a-brawl-with-fists-sticking-out-of-the-scribble, it was calculated beforehand in a way you could see, and then there-it-goes-almost-faster-than-you-can-see. I'm glad they took that particular storytelling risk.

I mentioned that I am very bad with faces, right? Enough so that it was perfectly reasonable to me to see two pretty, regular-featured, slim young women of a height and to wonder if they weren't the same person, given that there's master-of-disguise stuff going on in the movie. I eventually realized that they had to be different actresses (their noses were different).

I maintain that Irene totally could have been playing Mary as well as doing all her other international dirty deeds. It would have taken coordination, planning, the cooperation of other parties, and no small amount of good luck to pull off (well-timed "trips to the country" when Irene needed to appear elsewhere, strictly avoiding Holmes as much as possible, never agreeing to meet), but it could have been done.

Comments

[nova]

I really liked the fighting style too. And yes, Irene totally could have been Mary!

[pixel]

Having been severely confused by movies where characters looked too similar, I completely sympathize, but also, I love that idea!

I think I was completely overwhelmed with that-which-was-not-subtext. I just....*blink blink*

[azurelunatic]

The only "sub" in that text was "who is on the bottom this time?"

[aella_irene]

...I have suddenly realised that it would have been So Very Awesome if Irene's employer was Queen Victoria. Or one of Queen Victoria's daughters, acting as her agent.

[azurelunatic]

HEADCANON.

[aella_irene]

"We are not amused by Masons. Nor are we amused by Our Home Secretary behaving in an unorthodox manner. You have, Miss Adler, been of singular assistance to Our daughter the Kaiserin, and to Our cousin the Erzherzogin Sophia. To that end..."

[azurelunatic]

Talking about politics isn't all talking about men. I'll take it.

[aella_irene]

Especially since it is mentioned that Irene was instrumental in breaking a Hapsburg betrothal! (I will admit that my first reaction was "but there's no such thing as a Hapsburg Prince!" followed by "except for Franz Josef, and later Rudolf". I would really like to know which period it takes place in more directly.) ...and now I want it to be an AU where the engagement was that of Franz Josef to Sissi.

[azurelunatic]

Poor Miss Adler will be so embarrassed to report to Her Majesty that those fiends were even temporarily capable of manipulating her by threatening to fridge her beloved Holmes.

[aella_irene]

Well, by this point, Her Majesty has taken on her widow's weeds, and locked herself up in Windsor...

Also, the politics of marriage, in that period, were absolutely women's work. Every Queen and Empress and Duchess and Princess was the baba for their own family, their children and their nieces and their nephews, arranging suitable crosses, for the betterment of their country.

[jd]

I liked the fight bit the first time but not the second (and did they do it a third?) It seemed like a gimmick once it had been done.

[azurelunatic]

I only noticed the two.