Koersel Reviews

Sherlock: A Scandal in Belgravia (2012) Season 2, Episode 1

"We are a hit and we know it!"

[6/10 · 6 January 2012]

The best series almost always start off rather dull. Think Blackadder for instance. It is as if it needs to invent itself. But then it progressively gets better and better. Unfortunately not so with Sherlock. The first three episodes were great, with the middle one being a bit over the top, but to me episode 1 of series 2 is of much lower quality.

First off it is as mentioned by someone else; the cinematography. All tricks in the book are used, for instance "Under Suspicion" crime scene evaluation cinematography. And all seem to be done purely for effect rather than add to the story. As an effect the flow is gone. Plus eye candy is more often distracting than emerging, as it is here.

Then there is the (over)display of Sherlock his intelligence but stupidity of his actions. From the start they try way too hard to convince us of how enormously observant and deductive sherlock is. Yet he falls for the oldest tricks in the book whilst 'simple me' can see them coming from a mile away! For instance when they go to her room to see how the Americanos entered Miss Adler's house, she mentions a 'back door' (on the 2nd floor???) and tells Watson to check it out. Sherlock nods to Watson that it is OK to leave him alone with the woman that tried to kill him just a few seconds before using a booby trapped safe(!) Then 'of course' Holmes turns his back on her... And this is only an example unfortunately(!)

All in all it is not bad, but it is not getting better. It is all a tad to arrogant. Like they are over aware of their hit status.

A Touch of Spice (2003)

Why oh why?!?

[6/10 · 20 May 2006]

This movie starts out lovely, but when the location moves to Istanbul the language switches from Greek to English. "So what?" I hear you think. "I don't understand Greek anyway". Me neither, but that's not the point. Firstly, the actors their English is very bad, yet they have to utter quite complicated lines. But even that isn't what ruins it. It's the ridiculously bad voice-dubbing! And what's even worse is that it's completely out of sync! Even a Bud Spencer and Terence Hill movie had better dubbing than this. If the movie would have been Greek all the way to the end, it would score an 8+ for sure, but now...even a 6 is a bit too much! What a waste...

The Pledge (I) (2001)

Beautiful acting...but why?

[7/10 · 20 April 2002]

Very professionally shot movie with very nice character acting, and yet it left me with a sense of hollowness...

As the film unveils itself, Nickelsons character slides deeper and deeper into paranoia. This is done very gradually and delicately. Not the 'lets go crazy in 10 seconds flat' kinda Hollywood flick. To me the rest was just a side dish; the murder, his pension, his shallow partner, etc...(Del Torro almost outplayed Nickelson on the 'how to portray a nutcase' though!)Even his fixation with getting the son of a bitch is merely a vehicle for his paranoia.

BUT WHY? Why would "a good cop" go this nuts? Unlike for instance The Deer Hunter, in which u can see people go gradually nuts as well, there is no explanation whatsoever. There is only the promise he made on his soul's rest, but THAT just doesn't do the trick! And yes, the tempo isn't in the fast lane. That serves a purpose though: This is much more a character movie then a story movie in my opinion. And in that category, if you can withhold yourself from asking why too much, it's a good film! I rated this a 7.