User Reviews

Sherlock: The abominable bride. This seemed an abominable ride for me.

I am a fan of the sherlock series as Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman formed a terrific duo as Holmes and Watson. In this special one-off film, the viewers were given a Christmas treat. I can confess it was not as delicious as I thought it would be. There are moments of awe, but there are few in this film as compared to previous nine episodes of the three seasons.

This is a special film and the only one till date, to be coming in theaters from the series. There are many special things after the film is done. While the film was on, I only wondered what happened to specialties of Holmes and Watson.

Yes, I could explore very much of the mind palace of Holmes and also a period which was thus far not shown as the episodes are contemporary. This film is not a one-off case but seemed like a curtain raiser to the coming season. It tried to blend the now and the then, but it seemed flawed overall. I only wished to be watching a real sherlock Holmes doing real business in real time. But his mind wanders centuries too quickly which is not to my liking.

The technicalities are superb as always in this terrifically presented film. Yet, I wish the screenplay was more fluid and not as haphazard as it was.

Steven Moffat and Mark Gattis are terrific writers as per earlier episodes but I felt that they could not pull off this experimental one-off special.

I am going with 3/5 in a good film, but it's average as a sherlock episode.

I immensely enjoyed seeing Sherlock and Watson back in their 'real', I read every bit of Sherlock Holmes I could get my hands on when I was younger, couldn't get enough. This is the only one in which the relationship between Watson and Sherlock is on center stage-and in which the two characters are equally important. There is always the tendency to make Watson into a bafoon. Everything is top drawer. I think that the people who do the show really respect the stories, and even though there is some creative license because it is "modern", it all works. Everyone is on their game to transform modern London into old London. The story had the twists and turns it should and of course the acting is well done. I thought it was interesting to see the differences in not only how the characters dressed from new to old, but also their portrayal of the characters changed just a bit too.

This franchise has had a season and a bit to falter and fail to retrieve any of the promise of the first two seasons. To answer the question; where can we go with these characters? Gatiss and co have come up with the answer; down the same old avenues but this time in clown shoes. Every character except the title character have become ridiculous caricatures of their former selves. How many times must ubber-earnest Dr. Watson profess his man-love through misty eyes and missed breaths? How often must Mycroft deny his man-love and brotherly concern? How did anyone think giving Mycroft Holmes the Kranks treatment or giving Molly Hooper a bad case of pantomime transvestitism was anything short of a death knell for a show which is very much rudderless in high seas? The best thing that ever happened in this series was the again pantomime baddie Moriarty shutting his own gaping face hole with a bullet. How short on ideas must you be to be forced to resurrect your most gratuitous over-actor to puff out a ver thin and inconsequential mystery. (Bobby Euing in the shower post-mortem.) It is absolutely certain that this initial gush of support for this installment comes from those who were told to expect clever and don't have the wit or courage to recognize that they didn't get it. This bandwagon support will soon be superseded by laments for the promise that was once apparent, but in the hands of this team was not realizable. "Look he just survived the Reichenbach Fall..deal with it." This is not cute or an inside joke, and has shown nothing but incompetence from the writers. Anyone can write a protagonist onto a ledge, miracling them down again is the price you pay. Cheats! Looking at Gatiss's credentials based on cooky spooky comedy, and seeing now that he has nowhere further to go with these characters except up in flames, he should do himself and everybody else a favor and stop. He makes fiction for teens and his ideas are restricted by his life's work. Just as he could not convincingly resurrect Sherlock in series three he has already, with a sad admission coped out of his promise at the end of the same season to resurrect his over-camp version of Moriarty. Very obviously to all that the writers had not the first clue how to do either and whats worse weren't going to try. Don't believe the ratings..blind fan support and watching in disbelief will be shown for what they are when the dust settles or in this case the ash. A good start achieves little that a bad ending won't blot out.

The Sherlock stories are about a clever chap who, through observations is able to deduce theories of how and why crimes are committed, and by whom. What I expect, is a tale with a sensible start, an exciting middle where we are treated to how the great man comes to the conclusions he does and a satisfactory finale where the perpetrator gets his or her just desserts. What I don't appreciate is ridiculous posturings, fairy story supernatural shenanigans and a story-line difficult to fathom just what is going on, how are we expected to take the ridiculous nonsense seriously and what everyone involved is thinking to put out such utter drivel. As the series has gone on, and yes it is successful but when will folk wake up to the fact it has lost it's way and is increasingly stupid? Read the books again and let's return to a coherent plot and an enjoyable watch...please!

Was it all a dream? I don't know, don't much care. There were some good comic moments, and how they made Mycroft look like he was 400 pounds was really good work. The repartee between brothers was good too. But the main thrust of the story was lame. I hope they don't do this kind of thing again. They also used some mechanisms one does not see often, such as seeing the event as it's being related after the fact. I liked the camera work, and they worked hard to get the costumes and locales right. In other words, good production values. But, alas, the positives cannot make up for a story that, in the end, one does not understand what the point of it was. Perhaps it's just me, but I hope in the future they stick to more traditional story-telling.

Good lord what a load of garbage. who watches Sherlock Holmes to have him tout how men ought to lose to women? I'm no kind of misogynist, but this is just 21st century, me-too garbage.