For better or worse exactly what you would expect from a big budget adaptation..

Rating: 6/10 (2 January 2010)

It was a mistake to have such high hopes for this movie. Given that it was a big-budget Hollywood production, released at Holiday time and directed by Guy Ritchie I should have been able to deduce the outcome.
I'm a huge fan of the Sherlock Holmes stories as written by Doyle and so when I originally heard about this adaptation and its cast I was quite excited. I have high regard for Law and Downey and with so much material to draw from I figured both could do justice to their characters. In addition, I was hopeful that the screenplay would also draw from the wealth of excellent stories and history in the original novels.
The magic of the original stories is in these vital two pieces, plot and character. The film gets one of these right, character, but misses the plot completely.
I wouldn't have minded such a heavily action oriented movie if the plot had been immersive and realistic. Sherlock Holmes and his adventures were always realistically grounded, Holmes himself wasn't a superhero and his adventures were never as fantastical and unbelievable as the one portrayed in this movie. The events of the film were so over the top and "out there" that it ruined the sense of immersion and I found it hard to lose myself in the events of the film.
The draw of the original novels was never because of their action and fisticuffs. In fact, there wasn't a lot of fighting at all in the stories. Holmes's background in boxing was mentioned a few times but it never said he was the godlike fighter as portrayed here. In addition, if there was fighting in the books it was usually reduced to the final scene when the criminal was finally brought to justice. The meat of the stories was in the steps taken by Holmes and Watson to take each piece of evidence and edge closer and closer to realization and the solving of the crime. What made the solving of the crimes so enthralling in the books, was that the solution always seemed so near and yet so far. As a reader I always felt like the solution was on the tip of my tongue, yet when the solution was revealed I always was amazed that it was so simple yet a twist I could never have thought up.
The problem with the plot of the movie was that the crimes/problems that Holmes had to solve were so fantastical and irrational that there was no fun in trying to understand what was actually going on. The pace of the movie was so fast, the scene order so jumbled and the plot so bizarre, that I didn't feel any enjoyment in trying to understand the logic and mystery of the crimes. Indeed, when the solutions were revealed at the climax, most of the explanations relied on complex hitherto unknown chemicals or strange foreign concoctions. What a cop out! Oh, a man came back from the dead - answer? Ancient Chinese blah blah. Man spontaneously combusts? - answer? Random bizarre chemical known only by frenzied cultists.
The joy of the stories was the sheer intelligence of the plot and the final solution. One could tell by reading the books that Conan Doyle was incredibly bright and had an amazing mind. When contrasting that with the plot of the movie. Well, anyone can write a crime plot if the final answers just involve pulling out pseudo science chemicals that are capable of anything. The ending reminded of how any problems in Star Trek could be solved with some Pseudo Science Technobabble. I was hoping for a simpler story, less Dan Brown and more Miss Marple or Poirot, a murderer or kidnapping, with some clever twists and ingenious deductions which lead to the perpetrators capture or identification.
As for the love interest, she was purely put there to please the audience. Oh please. Sherlock Holmes was never the type to pine after a woman. He found Irene Adler fascinating, more because she outwitted than because he loved her or similar. The only person that Holmes ever really shows affection to is Watson. In fact, in the original stories it's more likely that Holmes was gay, although it's never explicitly stated.
The final point that annoyed me was the forced ending setting up a sequel. It was so clear that the studio influenced the ending of this film in order to setup the audience for Sherlock Holmes 2 that it completely ruined what could have been a decent ending to the movie. We all know that every successful modern movie gets a sequel, do we really need that fact rammed down our throats?
Lastly, the score was definitely uninspired, could definitely have been a lot better.
The good points were the action sequences and special effects which were well done, as can be expected by all big budget modern films.
Next time, pick a better director. I'd like to see what Bryan Singer or Guillermo del Toro could do with this material.