Sherlock (Seasons 1 and 2)

Starring: Benedict Cumberbatch, Martin Freeman

Creator: Steven Moffat, Mark Gatiss

Genre: Crime, Drama

Rating: A+

Doctor John Watson (Freeman) is an ex-army doctor who was injured in Afghanistan.  Through a mutual friend he meets  the eccentric Sherlock Holmes (Cumberbatch), whose home at 221B Baker Street he moves into.  Holmes is a much disliked freelance investigator for the police - many of whom see him as a psychopath who will one day snap.  This view is actually really easy to see, but over the course of the first season Sherlock and Watson really begin to develop a friendship, of sorts, as Watson begins to help Sherlock with his cases - or at least go along with them.

Possibly my favourite part about the show, however, is the fact that Sherlock very clearly sets out to be more than simply a buddy cop type show or just another procedural.  Each of the three episodes in the first season take elements of inspiration from the original stories by Arthur Conan Doyle, although only the plot of the first episode, "A Study in Pink" is an adaptation of a Conan Doyle story, in this case A Study in Scarlet - this is different in the second season, when all three episodes are based on the original Sherlock Holmes novels, in order A Scandal in Bohemia, The Hound of the Baskervilles, and The Final Problem.  I really like that they've done this; there's no dicking around with elements from the novels that people know and love, there's no hinting at them, there's no allusions.  Well, there are allusions but not in a way that leaves you hanging and wanting more.

The thing that really makes this show absolutely amazing, however, is the cast.  The supporting characters are great - from the cops like Sally Donovan (Vinette Robinson) who think that Sherlock is psychotic to Sherlock's brother Mycroft (Gatiss), to Mrs. Hudson (Una Stubbs) who is just pure awesome - but the two leads are even better.  I'm really not sure which I like more, the cold, Aspergerish Sherlock or his much more down to Earth and reasonable friend, Watson.  The dynamic between the two of them is superb and the fact that you really see the influence that Watson has on Sherlock - and that Sherlock has on Watson - is awesome.  I think the idea of a procedural where the main character is someone who doesn't fit into conventional society is my favourite form of the procedural, but when taken with Sherlock it becomes even better.  You can see Sherlock just as easily being the bad guy as he is the good guy, and it's only through his relationship with people like Watson and Mrs. Hudson that keeps him from going over that edge.  In a way, he's kind of like Sheldon Cooper meets Temperance Booth with a British accent and amazing cheek bones, but neither of them really has the balance that Watson provides.  It's great.  I can't wait for season three, even if it isn't coming out until 2014.

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012)

Starring: Ian McKellen, Martin Freeman, Richard Armitage, James Nesbitt, Ken Stott, Andy Serkis

Director: Peter Jackson

Genre: Adventure, Fantasy

Rating: A-

I wasn't sure whether I was going to like this movie or not going into it - I've never been a huge Lord of the Rings fan, but when I read The Hobbit (something like 15 years ago) I really did enjoy it. I was sure it was going to be good, but I didn't expect to be amazed.  To be honest, that's exactly what happened.  It was good, there were even parts that were great, and it brought my attention to some actors who I doubt I would have ever really noticed without it (notably Dean O'Gorman, who I haven't seen in anything since he was Iolaus in Young Hercules alongside Ryan Gosling), but it didn't really blow me away.  I know, I know, I'm a bad fan of fantasy if I don't love the works of Tolkien, but I don't.

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey is the first instalment of a prequel trilogy to the Lord of the Rings trilogy - and if you sci-fi fantasy fans out there don't instinctively cringe when you hear the words "prequel trilogy" I question you.  Set sixty years prior to the events of The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, The Hobbit tells the story of how the hobbit Bilbo Baggins (Freeman) joined the company of dwarves lead by Thorin Oakenshield (Armitage) on a journey across Middle-earth to reclaim their lost homeland, the Lonely Mountain, from Smaug the dragon.  The dwarves and Bilbo are joined the the wizard Gandalf the Grey (McKellen).  The group comes across Trolls and Orcs on Wargs - the latter who which are hunting specifically for Thorin - Elves, Goblins, and the wizard Radagast the Brown (Sylvester McCoy), who tells of a necromancer at Dol Gulder (played by Benedict Cumberbatch).  Most important of all, however, Bilbo encounters the slimey creature known as Gollum, who carries with him a mysterious ring.

Okay, so I will say this film is fun - in a lot of ways even more so than the Lord of the Rings films were.  There is no dark gloom hanging over our dwarves and hobbit yet, as they embark on an adventure.  They're not trying to save the world, they're trying to kill a dragon and take back a home.  This instantly makes The Hobbit a lot lighter than its predecessor-sequel, a fact that is added to by the way that it's shot - the colours are a lot brighter and cleaner than Lord of the Rings ever was.  There's also a lot more humour here, notably among the dwarves (and their interactions with Bilbo) and Gollum - although Gollum's despair does succeed in bringing a tear to the eye.

I think my favourite part of this movie is the fact that the goal is a lot clearer than in The Hobbit.  I realize that things are about to get a bit murky - what with the ring, and the necromancer, and all - but The Hobbit sets out to be a film about dwarves and a hobbit going to a mountain to fight a dragon, and in the end that's what the series is - or should be - about.  There's other stuff going on too - the ring, the necromancer, the orcs - but the end goal is clear.  You don't feel like anyone is about to stab someone in the back or anything - however unlikely this company is, and however much they might not always like each other, you never feel that they're going to kill each other.  Or at least, not yet.

The thing that I disliked the most about this film, however, is the way it tries to tie into the original series and, more importantly, the way that it utilizes the source material - and strays from the source material.  I might not be the biggest Tolkien fan, but I really don't like seeing people try to add to a work of literature when they make the conversion.  Sure, I understand some things have to get left behind, or merged with other things, but you don't need to add new parts to the story.  The way they did that really bothered me - but then, I suppose if Peter Jackson didn't add to the material, he couldn't as easily make The Hobbit into a trilogy.  I will say that I did really enjoy the way the film used Ian Holm to set up the idea of Bilbo writing a memoir of sorts about his journey, but I don't think that Elijah Wood as Frodo was necessary at all.

Love Actually (2003)

Starring: Hugh Grant, Liam Neeson, Colin Firth, Laura Linney, Emma Thompson, Alan Rickman, Keira Knightley, Martine McCutcheon, Bill Nighy, Rowan Atkinson, Lúcia Moniz, Thomas Sangster, Gregor Fisher, Andrew Lincoln, Kris Marshall, Heike Makatsch, Martin Freeman, Joanna Page

Director: Richard Curtis

Genre: Comedy, Drama, Romance

Rating: A

"Let's go get the shit kicked out of us by love"

Love is all around.  That is, very literally, the message of the 2003 film Love Actually.  The thing is, however, that this film isn't just about romantic love, although that does feature rather heavily, as it looks at the love between lovers, friends, and family.  There's even the loss of love and unrequited love and the whole shebang.  Love is all around.

The film follows a collection of people, all intricately connected to one another.  David (Grant) is the newly elected Prime Minister of Great Britain, and develops an attraction for a new junior member of his staff, Natalie (McCutcheon).  David's sister, Karen (Thompson), is having problems in her marriage - although she's not entirely aware of it yet - as her husband, Harry (Rickman) is enticed by his flirtatious new secretary Mia (Makatsch).  Also working for Harry is Sarah (Linney) and Karl (Rodrigo Santoro).  Sarah is in love with Karl and has been since she started working at the company, although neither she nor Karl have made any moves yet.  Karen's friend Daniel (Neeson) is newly widowed and unsure of how to help his stepson Sam (Sangster), who has fallen in love with classmate Joanna (Olivia Olson).  Sarah's friend Jamie (Firth) has discovered that his girlfriend is sleeping with his brother and in order to deal he retires to his French cottage, where he meets Aurélia (Moniz), who only speaks Portuguese.  Jamie and Sarah both attended the wedding of Juliet (Knightley) and Peter (Chiwetel Ejiofor).  Juliet has long thought that Peter's best friend Mark (Lincoln) hated her, when in actuality he's been in love with her this whole time.  Also at the wedding is Colin (Marshall), a British man who has decided to go to America where his accent will instantly make him a hit with the ladies.  His friend Tony (Abdul Salis) doesn't believe this is the best idea.  Tony is the production assistant of a film where John (Freeman) and Judy (Page) are body doubles for a sex scene.  Overseeing it all is rock and roll legend Billy Mack (Nighy)'s attempt to have a #1 Christmas hit, a variation of The Troggs' "Love is all Around".  Billy Mack's one friend is his longtime manager Joe (Fisher).  Oh, also, there's minor character Rufus (Atkinson) who provides a couple antics and was initially supposed to be a Christmas angel before being dropped as such - I still like to think of him as one.

This is the kind of film that movies like New Years Eve, Valentine's Day, and What to Expect When You're Expecting all try to be.  Centred around one common theme it tells the story of a bunch of different people who are all connected but at the same time unrelated.  There's the perfect amount of characters here, with the story focusing heavily on some and not so heavily on others.  There are no real twists, you can see the endings that end up happening coming for miles, but it's not really a movie that needs twists.  Each of the storylines is absolutely awesome and each of the characters is great.  Even John and Judy, who get the briefest of scenes, have the feel of being these thoroughly developed characters.  You know that they exist outside of the sex acts that they're miming.

The other thing that I really like about the film is that while you can see the endings coming, some of them aren't necessarily the ones that you want to see happen.  I always feel a but guilty as I watch the Mark/Juliet/Peter triangle, because no matter how much I know Juliet and Peter are in love and even though I think Peter's a great guy, I want Juliet to leave him and hook up with Mark.  At the same time, I want Harry to smarten up and be with his wife.  I don't care so much about some plots - like the Colin one, which I think was just for laughs, or the Sam one, which I think is a bit cliched - but Love Actually is more than just the sum of its parts.  It's just sheer awesomeness.

In addition to being a story about love, this is also a comedy, to which it does so rather nicely.  The amount of comedy is different in each plot, and to an extent so is the style, but somehow it works here.  Even with their differences, they all seem to work well together, they mesh like a really good collage - like a puzzle depicting a picture of Mickey made out of a bunch of smaller images of scenes from Disney movies.  The one-liners keep on coming in this one, as do the little scenes that are just hilarious.  If you haven't seen this movie yet, I recommend you at least look up the image of Hugh Grant dancing to "Jump (For My Love" by The pointer Sisters.

The Pirates! Band of Misfits / In an Adventure with Scientists (2012)

Stars: Hugh Grant, Martin Freeman, David Tennant, Salma Hayek, Jeremy Piven, Imelda Staunton
Director: Peter Lord and Jeff Newitt

Genre: Animation, Adventure, Family

Rating: C

I’m not exactly sure where to begin in explaining my disappointment in this film.  Trailers for it made it look like a cute animated film about a band of pirates who aren’t exactly good at being pirates and are entering the Pirate of the Year competition.  Silly, yes, but cute.  And in the post-Pixar world, I think it’s safe to say that we’ve come to expect adult friendly children’s films.  Sadly, this really wasn’t what The Pirates! Band of Misfits (In an Adventure with Scientists outside of North America) was all about.  Yes, there were pirates, yes they were incompetent, yes there was a competition, but the actual plot was a lot more than just that – and it was in that extra development that the film really lost me.

The Pirate Captain (Grant) is the captain of a crew of pirate misfits; there’s the Pirate with a Scarf (Freeman), Peg-Leg Hastings, the Pirate with Gout, the Surprisingly Curvaceous Pirate, the Albino Pirate, and the Pirate Who Likes Sunsets and Kittens.  They are, very much rightly, ridiculed by the pirating world, especially by the Pirate Captain’s nemeses, Black Bellamy (Piven) and Cutlass Liz (Hayak), two surprisingly competent pirates who frequently win the Pirate of the Year Award.  Determined to prove himself, the Pirate Captain and his crew set out to prove themselves, and while doing so they board the Beagle and take Charles Darwin (Tennant) captive.  Yes, that Darwin.  It is at this point that the plot of the film becomes somewhat overly complicated; it is revealed that the Pirate Captain’s parrot is in fact the last remaining living dodo.  Darwin is very much your modern day stereotype of a science geek, - complete with an awkwardness around girls and a crush on someone far out of his league, specifically Queen Victoria (Staunton) – wants to take Polly to the Scientist of the Year awards, where he’s sure he will win both the top prize and the love and affection of the Queen.  The Captain, however, sees this as an opportunity for him to gather a huge booty and thus win the Pirate of the Year Award.  Queen Victoria, however, is adamantly against Pirates and also collects very rare and endangered animals, for her own devious means.  It is up to the Pirates and Darwin to save the day.

If that all seems a little ridiculous, it’s because it is.  In fact, it’s completely ridiculous and over the top.  It claims to be smart, but really it’s just over the top.  The humour is, for the most part, rather dull and a bit dimwitted, it’s talking down to its audience.  The premise of the plot is extremely implausible.  I love a good fantasy as much as the next person, but I hate it when something attempts to situate itself in the real world and then makes the plot overly complicated and unrealistic.  If it was just about a band of misfit pirates (as it was promoted) who were trying to win the Pirate of the Year award it would be one thing, or even if it was just about that time that Charles Darwin accidentally found a dodo hidden as a pirate’s parrot.  Combining the two just takes it over the top, as does Queen Victoria as the villain.  The characters are all really just absurd caricatures, presenting stereotypes and over the top ridiculousness.  In the post-Pixar world it is easy to expect more of a children’s movie, but The Pirates fails to deliver.