Avatar and Sherlock Holmes reviews without spoilers

We don't celebrate Christmas. So this year it is a nice four day weekend for Pere.

We saw Avatar on Thursday and Sherlock Holmes on Friday.

Avatar was worth seeing. It was very beautiful. We saw it in 3D which I was worried about at first because 3D usually gives me a headache. But this 3D was really clean and really good. Almost every scene was 3D, but not really "in your face."

The story of Avatar was only okay. Nothing new or original, no new ground broken. But you can say that about a lot of enjoyable movies. It is too bad that James Cameron didn't give us a storyline as elevated as the visuals.

Friday we went to see Sherlock Holmes. I am such a fanboy! I have read all the original Sir Conan Doyle stories more than once (and now I want to read them again.) I love Holmes. And this movie made me love Watson even more. Watson was always capable of being played like Jude Law did it, it is in the television and movie versions that we get a comic relief Watson. But in the books he was always a capable guy and into the ladies.

Sherlock was pretty crazy, according to Watson, and I loved the way Robert Downey Jr played him. He showed Sherlock as a genius that is close to madness, his bad ass skills with fighting and detecting (yes Sherlock did now boxing, sword fighting, etc) and my favorite was showing his confusion in trying to deal with feelings.. RD jr. did a really good job with that, it was all in his eyes.

The villain, Lord Blackwood, was not atypical for a Sherlock Holmes story but I really wasn't that worried about him.

Sherlock Holmes was also a very visually attractive film, the dark streets and waterways of London were like Gothic paintings in some scenes. The fights scenes were visceral and easily navigable by the eye (in so many movies these days you can't realy tell what is happening during fight scenes.)

I like S.H. more than Avatar, but that could be because I am such a fan of the former.