Movie Review: Sherlock Holmes

Ahh, Netflix.  Movies in the mail. Such an ingenious idea. Usually, I think it's great.  But this time, someone made a mistake.  I'm not sure who is more to blame.  Netflix, for having a (slightly) strange movie selection system, or the movie's writer & producer, for even coming up with the idea for this film in the first place and actually following through with it.

I've been looking forward to seeing the new Sherlock Holmes movie for quite some time.  It has a great cast and looks really good.  After a long week of field work, I was excited to finally be able to see it.  Unfortunately, the Netflix gods had other plans for the weekend.  When I opened the envelope and began reading the description and names of cast members on the DVD sleeve, I started to get confused.  I didn't think that the description was what the movie was supposed to be about at all.  So I began the movie and started watching the trailers, just to check. 

The trailers started out with some weirdo Brittany Murphy movie (probably her last) called Megafault.  I'm thinking I may have to rent this because these types of movies are absolutely hilarious to a geologist.  (Think Volcano, 10.5, 2012, The Core, all those ridiculous types of movies)  The trailers that followed were all on a similar note, something having to do with a natural disaster or outer space or something. 

Then, when the little movie welcome screen came on, I was sure that this was not the right movie.  Where was Robert Downey Jr.?  Rachel McAdams?  Jude Law?  Now that I think about it, the dinosaur printed on the DVD (yes, there was a dinosaur in the movie, more on that later) probably should have tipped it off right as I put it in the player, but I guess I hadn't given up hope just yet. 

I went onto my Netflix que and discovered that, while this movie was in fact called Sherlock Holmes, and had been released in 2009, it was not the popular theater-released version.  It was actually a straight-to-DVD version created in hopes of getting in on some of the hype of the other Holmes movie.  Here's the movie I got:

 Yeah... not exactly the right one.

So I'm thinking to myself, okay, well, I'll just watch it anyway.  It can't be that bad, right?

The movie begins with Watson as an old man recounting the tale of one of his adventures with Holmes to his nursemaid.  It then flashes back to the time that the story takes place.  A ship of fish mongers is overtaken by what appears to be a giant squid/octopus type thing and Watson is doing the autopsy on one of the men when Holmes comes in and figures out how the man died in about 2 minutes.

A little later this weird looking chick comes into Watson's office and Watson, being a ladies man, asks her to dinner or something.  She says yes, but Watson ends up not going because Holmes needs his help.  A dinosaur is terrorizing the city and killing random people. They go on an adventure to figure out who is behind the attacks.

I sort of fell asleep at this point so I'm not really sure what happened but they end up in some building where they find the dinosaur, the giant squid, and a robot.  Except the robot is not actually a robot.  It's a costume being worn by Holmes' estranged brother, who was injured in the war and is now seeking revenge for some reason or another by blowing up Buckingham palace.  Remember the girl that Watson asked out?  Yeah, well it turns out she's a femme bot programmed to self destruct once she gets inside the palace.  So Holmes and Watson have to stop this from happening.

But they get distracted by Holmes' brother who is now riding around in a mechanical flying dragon, old-school Power Rangers style.  Somehow, Holmes gets a hold of a hot air balloon and begins battling the dragon.  I can't give you the details of how this played out because I was far too distracted by the ridiculousness of this scene. 

Meanwhile, femme bot is busy trying to take out the palace guards but Watson is there to stop her.  Somehow Holmes ends up there with his brother.  The brother dies and that's pretty much it.

It then flashes forward again to old Watson, who has died in the middle of telling his story.  The nursemaid goes to his grave and while she is there, she sees the femme bot visiting another grave which belongs to Holmes' brother.  And that's the end of the movie.

Yeah.