No. Stop This Nonsense.

Look, I have enough problems with Guy Ritchie's Sherlock Holmes adaptation already. But now I hear that Brad Pitt is dropping in to phone it in for a couple of days because studio executives just HAD to have Professor Moriarty in there, somewhere. Guys, the pop culture universe just must not love me today, because this may be more terrible news than I can handle. Let me remind you all what Professor Moriarty is supposed to look like:

Photo from Wikimedia Commons. Illustration initially by Sidney Paget.

And let me remind you what Brad Pitt looks like:

Image used under a Creative Commons license courtesy jackleg.

That is not the face of an international criminal mastermind. That is the face of a guy who is really excited to sell you a cell phone in Japan. That is not the body of a man who is all brain. That is the body of a guy who gets to get cuddly with Angelina Jolie, and okay, maybe he's getting a little run down by the kids, but hey, the abs could be resurrected in a jiffy if that's what we want and need.

I don't mean to complain endlessly about this stuff. But while Arthur Conan Doyle isn't a flashy writer, physical characterization matters in his novels. His characters look a certain way because they behave a certain way. Professor Moriarty's appearance in the stories happens for a reason, and he look kind of skinny and scary because he uses his intellect to do terrifying things that distance him from the realm of ordinary humanity. It's stupid of studio executives to insist that Moriarty be included in the movie like another kitchen sink. And it's stupid to cast Brad Pitt to play him just because he and Ritchie are pals, and hey, he had some time in his schedule. The way Conan Doyle wrote these characters and these stories works. I'm increasingly unsure that Ritchie's movie will.