IF YOU?RE UP for some stargazing at the movies this week, Guy Ritchie?s ?Sherlock Holmes? and Betty Thomas? ?Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakuel? won?t disappoint.
The former has Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law playing Victorian versions of themselves, while the latter features David Seville?s furry wards?the mischievous Alvin, the bespectacled Simon and the impressionable Theodore. The singing rodents even bring Charice along for the squeak-worthy comedic ride.
However, if you want substantial stories for those lovable celebrities to navigate in, you?ll probably be disappointed. Ritchie?s revisionist ?Sherlock Holmes? finds Arthur Conan Doyle?s astute albeit loopy detective (Downey) teaming up with his bosom buddy, Dr. John Watson (Law, who drops his character?s famously bumbling nature), to foil the power-grabbing ambitions and satanistic inclinations of the sinister Lord Henry Blackwood (Mark Strong), who seems to have risen from the grave only three days after he is sent to the gallows!
Brilliant sleuth
As the dashing Dr. Watson prepares to leave his partner?s Baker Street abode to put up his own business and marry his fiancée, Mary Morstan (Kelly Reilly), things get dicier for Holmes when Irene Adler (Rachel McAdams), the American femme fatale who is said to be the only woman to have outwitted the brilliant British sleuth (twice), enlists his help to track down a missing midget?!
The confoundingly convoluted case leads Holmes to the Temple of the Four Orders, a secret society whose leaders are threatened by the emerging powers of Lord Blackwood, who?s a former member. Who will emerge victorious in this epic battle between science and sorcery?
Ritchie fills the screen with strikingly stylish visuals and edge-of-your-seat action sequences that benefit from the filmmaker?s hyperkinetic exposition and muted colors-fueled scenography?which effectively conjures up the rain-soaked gloom and exhilarating grandeur of 19th century London.
Unfortunately, the film is too smart (-alecky) for its own good?a style that may be a snug fit for the divinely witty Downey and the charming Law, but not for the movie itself. Downey, Law and McAdams paint the foggy London town red with characterizations that are more feisty than real.
Ritchie works so hard to tie up the story?s loose ends with one convenient plot twist after another that his carefully calibrated narrative tricks soon lose their novelty and effectivity.
Halfway through the film?s protracted running time (it runs for about two hours and 10 minutes), viewers begin to tune out and lose interest in Holmes? safety, sanity, or substance-enhanced lucidity.
Alvin, Simon and Theodore?s fur-clad cuteness and silly-dilly charm buoy up the logic-free sequel, ?Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakuel,? which has the singing trio attending high school and participating in a talent search.
This time, the competition is tougher, and comes in the form of the similarly furry, Destiny?s Child-wannabe threesome, the Chipettes. The Munks have everybody?s welfare in mind?but, the trio?s spiteful former manager (David Cross) wants something else: Profit?and vengeance!
Lovable
The furry sextet is inherently lovable, but their episodic humor doesn?t always fly high, because the gags are often too archaic and hackneyed.
If there?s one thing Pinoy viewers need to watch out for, though, it?s Charice?s short but entertaining musical cameo, in which she performs Alicia Keys? ?No One? during the singing contest. Like art imitating life, the teenage belter predictably doesn?t get the talent tilt?s top prize?but she wins moviegoers? hearts!
