"Sherlock Holmes"

Richard's Review: 2 1/2 stars

Robert Downey Jr.'s entrance in the opening minute of "Sherlock Holmes"-he leaps off a buttress, effortlessly rolls down a set of stairs stopping just in time for the camera to catch his close-up-suggests that this isn't your father's-or your grandfather's or mom's or anybody else's-Sherlock Holmes. The ensuing kung fu battle and satanic ritual confirms it.

Set in 1891 the story centers on Holmes (Robert Downey, Jr.) and Watson (Jude Law), doctor, war veteran and best friend, getting to the bottom of a case involving the supernatural, an ex-flame (Rachel McAdams) of the great detective, The House of Lords and deadly cult leader named Lord Blackwood (Mark Strong). It plays like Holmes meets "The DaVinci Code."

With "Sherlock Holmes" director Guy Ritchie has created the darkest movie of the Christmas season. Mimicking the depressing fog and industrial smoke that colored Victorian London, he's made a drab and dreary looking movie that never met a shade of gray it didn't like. That would be fine if the story or the performances added some color to the film, but unfortunately for Holmes (and for the audience) not only is "Sherlock Holmes's" color palate a bit monochromatic but the whole film is a little on the dull side.

The story is suitably convoluted for a Holmes story, there is plenty of intrigue, much deducing and loads of clues, trouble is, nothing much happens. The game may be a-foot but it feels more like a loose collection of action sequences bound together by some witty "Odd Couple" style banter between the leads and Downey's quirky performance.

Downey plays Holmes like a cross between Robert Langdon and a Victorian street urchin. Apparently being brilliant means you don't have to wash. Or tuck your shirt in. Or shave or clean your fingernails. Downey throws out the image of the debonair Basil Rathbone Holmes in a deerstalker hat for something much more bohemian. In fact, it's closer to the description of the detective offered up in Conan Doyle's books and short stories. Downey plays the role with suitable gusto (and acceptable English accent), but is let down by a script that is a non-starter.

Downey has good chemistry with Jude Law but the same can't be said for Rachel McAdams as his love interest. Guy Ritchie isn't known for his way with female characters and "Sherlock Holmes" and she suffers for it. The movie wastes McAdams in a damsel in distress role that requires her to do little other than leer in Holmes's general direction. She's more a plot point than a character and it's a shame to see McAdams wasted like that. She gets lost in the �ber-maleness of it all.

"Sherlock Holmes" gets the spirit of Holmes but doesn't deliver the goods. Big budget action scenes are sprinkled throughout, but even the huge set pieces like the fight in the shipyard-which must have cost a fortune-contains no drama and the only real mystery here is how Guy Ritchie managed to take good elements-like Robert Downey Jr and Sherlock Holmes, one of the most popular characters of the last one hundred years-and make such a lackluster movie.

"Nine"

Richard's Review: 3 1/2 stars

"Nine," the latest Broadway to big screen outing from director Rob Marshall, is by turns breathtaking and frustrating. A cinematic remounting of the 1982 Tony award-winning musical (which was itself inspired by Federico Fellini's classic "8 1/2") about an Italian film director in the throws of a mid-life crisis is heavy on the glamour-Kate Hudson's character tells the director that in his movies "every frame is like a postcard" and that is certainly true here as well-but not heavy enough with story.

When the movie starts world-famous filmmaker Guido Contini (Daniel Day-Lewis) is mentally blocked. His latest opus "Italia" is only ten days away from the beginning of production and he has yet to have an idea for the film, let alone write a line of dialogue. Edging ever closer to a nervous breakdown, his entanglements with a variety of women, including his mistress Carla (Pen�lope Cruz), wife Luisa (Marion Cotillard) and mother (Sophia Loren), only push him further down his self made rabbit hole.

The first question everyone has about "Nine" is, "Can Daniel Day Lewis sing?" The answer, in a word (actually a few words) is, no, not really. He speak-sings his two songs in a strange baritone that sounds more like a drunk uncle singing with the wedding band than a big-budget musical star, but I can forgive the singing because his brooding presence anchors every scene in the film. In a movie as cotton candy light as this you need something or someone to affix the story to and Day-Lewis is it.

Marshall takes the movie's thin premise and stretches it to feature length, keeping the eye interested with stylish camera work, scantily clad dancers and great 1960s Italian locations, fashions and period decoration, but he may have taken the words of one of his characters a bit too seriously. "Style is the new content," coos Stephanie (Kate Hudson). If that is true then "Nine" is the most substantial movie of the year, meaning that it is great to look at, but somehow, the story doesn't really connect.

If you are just going for the music however, you won't be disappointed. Marshall has cut several of the tunes from the original score, added several others (by original Broadway composer Maury Yeston) and wallpapered the movie with memorable songs, set pieces and choreography. Highlights include Fergie's ode to roaming hands, "Be Italian," "Cinema Italiano" Kate Hudson's exuberantly fluffy 60's pop number and "A Call from the Vatican," Penelope Cruz's steamy phone sex song.

Nine's glossy veneer over powers whatever story there is but its panache and energy will keep your eye entertained.

"It's Complicated"

Richard's Review: 3 1/2 stars

Despite the title there's nothing terribly complicated about "It's Complicated," the new slice of lifestyle porn from director Nancy Meyers that nicks its name from a facebook status. The pitch goes something like this: two men vie for the affection of one woman. Been there done that, but it becomes something a little more interesting when you attached the names Meryl Streep, Alec Baldwin, two dramatic actors who can do funny and Steve Martin, a funny actor who can do serious.

Jane (Meryl Streep) is a divorcee in Santa Barbara. Her last daughter is leaving the nest and now she wonders who she'll watch "The Hills" with. She may not have to wonder for long. At her son's graduation in New York she reconnects with her ex husband Jake (Alec Baldwin). They've been apart for ten years ever since he had an affair with Agness (Lake Bell), a much younger woman who is now his wife. The two unexpectedly hit it off, and now the roles are reversed-Jane becomes an ex-wife with benefits when she begins an affair with her former husband. The complication the title refers to is Adam (Steve Martin) an earnest architect hired to redesign Jane's home but who instead falls in love with her.

It's a standard setup for a screwball comedy and in the end not all that important. The important thing is whether or not you want to watch these people as they navigate the triangle that has become their love life. Luckily, Nancy Meyers has cast well, putting together a powerhouse front line cast that compensates for the story's simplicity.

Meryl Steep is in "Mama Mia" mode here, having fun with the role of a restaurant owner who's richer than the Dean in Dean & Deluca. She's loose, funny and relaxed. Steve Martin has the least showy role as Adam, the lovesick architect, but his performance makes me wish he would aim a little higher and never again crack another "Pink Panther" script.

Despite Meryl and Martin the movie belongs to Alec Baldwin who steals every scene he's in. The easy way with a line that has earned him an Emmy or two for his work on "30 Rock" translates well here and his vanity free performance-Hairy! Fat! Nude!-is easy going fun. This trio works through the hackier material, even selling the prerequisite "parents getting high for the first time in twenty years" scene. It's been done many times before but it's worth it this time around to see Baldwin super toking and Streep, high off one puff, gaze into a mirror and ask, incredulously, "Is this what I look like?"

On the minus side Lake Bell, who was the only funny thing in "Over Her Dead Body," a bad Eva Longoria comedy from a couple of years ago, is wasted, cast as a stereotype, but leave it to Nancy Meyers to turn conventional Hollywood wisdom on its head and downplay the young characters in favor of the older ones.

"It's Complicated" is an enjoyable watch, it's a fluffy diversion from the heavier drama that tends to come out during the holiday season. Go for the Nancy Meyers trademarks-beautiful rich people who don't seem to have to work, nice houses and exotic sports cars-and stay for the agreeable charm of the cast.

"The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus"

Richard's Review: 3 1/2 stars

Richard's Review: 3 1/2 stars

As you may have guessed from the title "The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus" is an odd movie. Directed by Terry Gilliam, it is the strange tale of a mysterious immortal who complicates his life by making deals with the devil. Complicating Gilliam's life during production was the unexpected death of his star Heath Ledger but, the show, as they say, must go on and here we are after the untimely January 2008 passing of the young actor, with a completed film. How did Gilliam finish the movie? A new credit, "A Film from Heath Ledger and Friends" tells the tale. Three of Ledger's buddies, Johnny Depp (seen dancing on a leaf!), Colin Farrell and Jude Law, stepped in to play "through the looking glass" versions of the late actor.

Set in present day London the film begins with a look at Doctor Parnassus's (Christopher Plummer) bizarre traveling show which offers people a chance to step through Dr.P's magical mirror into an alternate reality. He's selling imagination, but his gift of mind's eye manipulation came with a heavy price. Eons before he made a trade with the devil (Tom Waits)-remarkable power in exchange for his first born daughter on her sixteenth birthday. That anniversary is now days away but with the help of a mysterious stranger named Tony (played by Ledger, Depp Law and Farrell) and the magic mirror Dr. P just may be able to save her.

"The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus" is more a piece of surrealist art than a traditional movie. Imagine watching a Salvador Dali painting come to life and you'll get the idea. Gilliam, who co-wrote the script as well as directed, has allowed his imagination to run riot. While the story meanders to and fro he fills the screen with unforgettable images; Old Nick dangling Dr. P from the end of a branch or a multi-eyed hot air balloon shaped like a man's head or the ensemble of skirt wearing, dancing Bobbies. Visually it'll make your eyeballs do the Watusi.

The story, however, may leave some a bit baffled, but so what if it warps the brain a bit? The film oozes Gilliam's trademarked anarchic spirit-he might be the only filmmaker who could replace his leading man with three other actors and actually pull it off-and is the most original movie of the year.