I don’t review.

I’m bad at it, I think engaging with something as a reviewer is fundamentally different from engaging with it as a reader or a viewer, and in any case I never go and see anything until someone tells me I should. So. All that said, this is what I think of the new Sherlock Holmes movie…

Before we begin: there are spoilers here, sort of. I’m going to talk about the main plot, which as far as I’m concerned isn’t really a spoiler because it’s gaspingly obvious from the start what’s going on. I will avoid the good stuff, which is mostly incident-based.

Anyway, it’s really not bad at all. I don’t like the central premise – evil Satanist plots to take over the world – because there is absolutely no way, once you have chosen that route, that you can avoid the Hammer House of Horror problem. You will have a booby bird in a white dress writhing on a stone table, you will have silly robes and that shot from Amadeus where everyone’s wearing a mask, and you will end up with something which Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee might have been in, back when no one giggled at the line ” I do not drink…. wine.”

So right there, poor Mark Strong has a problem persuading me that he’s scary. He does a really good job with the villain, and I’m the bastard in the back row snorting into my popcorn and thinking that he looks like Draco Malfoy all grown up and still trying really hard to make the other kids think he’s badass. (As an aside: weirdest thing – I swear Draco was in my parents’ road the other day with a bunch of other young’uns, following a schoolbus-type effort which was stuck in the snow. My mother reports that he fell over on his face immediately after very politely wishing me good morning and being nice about my hat. There’s no justice in the world, if so; he was sweet and didn’t deserve to fall over, and worse yet I didn’t get a picture. Yes, yes, I am indeed that very bastard I mentioned earlier.)

The notional theme is respectable, of course – Conan Doyle was very into scientific investigation of the occult, and Holmes frequently encounters what appear to be ghostly goings-on in the course of his cases, and of course he debunks them and all is well – but I can’t help it: for me, it’s a no-no. So scratch that. I ignored the central plot when I could, which was most of the time.

Where this movie kicks six kinds of arse is the character of Holmes, which is, in the end, what it’s all about. This new Holmes is a powerfully familiar one with a less stilted way of being in the world. The old Holmes mentioned that he practised Asian methods of hand-to-hand combat, but never really showed them off, because gentlemen don’t make a spectacle of themselves. This one fights in the ring, half-pissed and sociopathically, coldly effective. He has dysfunctional relationships – well, that’s familiar, too – and an utter, smart-mouthed contempt for those with less intelligence than himself. He’s obsessive, manic-depressive, sexually rapacious yet chaste… (Irene Adler getting a new lease of life at last.) It somehow isn’t a brave new world, it’s the old one with surround sound. Robert Downey Jnr – superb choice, and for my money the only American who should ever be allowed to play Doctor Who. Well, maybe apart from Lawrence Fishburne. Or Lauren Bacall. Or… well, all right, never mind. By the way, can someone give me the number for Downey’s personal trainer? Holy cow…

And then to cap it all off, there’s Watson; long-suffering, at the top of his own field and handy in a fight, conventional to a fault, loyal unto death. The friendship sizzles with unresolved man-man attraction, brotherhood, and a struggle for dominance. Above all, it works. I believe in them both. Oh, and they’re funny together. Jude Law‘s dry, exasperated doctor is more than a sidekick, he’s a companion in adversity and a necessary other half. (Damn, that’s annoying; he’s a month younger than I am.)

And steampunk? Just a whiff. The ethos of wicked Lord Blackwood’s contraptions is decidedly modern-made-with-brass-tubes, and the Victorian London we meet is a place of experimentation and science. There’s a gorgeous shot of Tower Bridge mid-construction.

So – don’t be afraid. It’s much less silly than many of the other Sherlock Holmes movies which have been made, and I enjoyed it. Deliciously, the film sets up a sequel with Holmes’ arch-nemesis, Moriarty, at least tangentially involved in the action. Potentially fabulous if they can craft a sufficiently evil scheme and hold the line on the villain, whether it’s Moriarty himself or someone under him. Mycroft is also absent from this one – huge fun for someone, though Charles Grey is a hard act to follow in that regard. Since this flick did well at the box office, we might even get to see the next one. I’ll be booking seats early.

It’s always hard to know what to say when someone reviews your book positively. (When someone is negative, of course, one knows exactly what to say, and where to find decent-sized rocks to throw or flesh-eating fire ants to put in their linens. Er… or is that just me?)

When someone’s nice, though, there’s a thing. At least, I think there’s a thing. And the thing is: it’s weird to say “thank you”. There’s sort of a duff note. “Thank you” is what you say to someone who has done something for you, and a reviewer hasn’t. Or shouldn’t have. A reviewer has, at least notionally, expressed an unvarnished opinion. They’ve read your book and written about what they found there. In theory, someone who absolutely hates the ground on which you walk should produce a review every bit as nice as someone who thinks you personally are a ray of sunshine in a dark and fretful world.

And from this, because I am among other things a neurotic lunatic, I derive the notion that it is faintly offensive to thank someone for a positive review. It feels as if you are implying that they are not a good reviewer. You are suggesting that they didn’t call it as they saw it, that you somehow own part of them or that they now feel you owe them one.
Yes, I know. It’s hogwash. But there’s a happy ending…

… or if you’re in Oz, the long summer evenings.