Sherlock Holmes Film Analysis Essay

991 Words2 Pages

Introduction
When considering the extent to which Guy Richie’s 2009 film, ‘Sherlock Holmes’ fulfils the conventions of crime/murder mystery genre you must look at his plot and how he has incorporated all the conventions so the movie is portrayed in the crime/murder mystery genre. Given that Sherlock Holmes is the most famous and well – known detective character in all of history, Guy Ritchie would have needed to meet certain audience expectations of how Sherlock Holmes would be portrayed and he would have also been required to approach all the conventions from a crime/murder mystery influence. Ritchie has especially fulfilled the character and iconography conventions because of the expectations that audiences will have about their traditional …show more content…

The theme that was most prominently brought out in this movie was to look beyond the apparition. Throughout the movie all the crime scenes are formed around black magic, such as the death of Blackwood’s father is shot to look as if the water is bubbling and killing him from suffocation. Then at the climax point, Sherlock traps Blackwood on the bridge and whilst he is hanging on for his life, Sherlock explains to him how he achieved all the apparent supernatural actions. Sherlock and his close circle were the only people who questioned how he was doing these things. They looked at the smaller details which Sherlock explains earlier in the movie are the most important. By doing this throughout the film, Holmes realises that Blackwood has been using science and passing it off as black magic, Holmes has looked at the activities and actions of Blackwood and has immediately questioned the real logic and facts behind …show more content…

By strongly fulfilling the base conventions, Ritchie was then able to add his own influence and light to the film through action which successfully built up the suspense and drama within the movie. Characters had deeper personalities an understanding from the audience, the theme allowed you to see the true intellectual ability of Holmes, the iconography added suspense and excitement which are vital in a crime/murder mystery and the mood/cinematic style allowed scenes to show the audience something the characters didn’t know and to add mournfulness or suspense to the film through music. Even though Sherlock Holmes may have been a bit more of a man of action than we are used to, it did not depart from the genre crime/murder mystery it simply enhanced

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