Closer to Doyle's Truth than Expected

Rating: 9/10 (2 January 2010)

The new Sherlock Holmes adventure offers a great deal of promise and excitement beyond the already created story. Being an avid fan of Sherlock Holmes (due to a startling number of similarities in personality, but sadly not wits), I was both excited and apprehensive to watch this new addition to an already incredible set of stories. I have read nearly every story written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. To be fair, I have often found that the movies created today fashioned after great novels of the past are changed nearly always for the worse. The changes are typically viewed with cynical disdain and fury at the director's/writer's arrogance. However, the changes applied to the characters so many have grown to love and admire in Conan Doyle's work are not as bad as I expected. In fact, I may go so far as to say that I rather enjoyed Ritchie's view of Sherlock.
So to warn anyone, I should point out that I will be outlining a number of differences and similarities between the original works and the movie. That being said, if you do not want to hear about the movie, then stop reading now.
Before I begin, I want to inform readers of the stories (in case they have not read them). I should point out that nearly all the stories (except two) were written from Dr. John Watson's perspective. They are taken from notes he supposedly kept of each case and were written ONLY at the permission of Sherlock. Sherlock is a man consumed by his own curiosity and boredom. When his mind is not fully employed to discover some unknown through deduction, he becomes reclusive and intolerable to Watson, often because he passes time by doing cocaine. Though I should point out that he was NOT a drug addict because he neither craved nor depended upon the substance other than to eliminate the insufferable boredom of having no cases to work on. Contrary to popular belief, Sherlock neither enjoyed attention nor fame. He rarely cared for taking credit in the solutions of many of the mysteries and often asked for little or no money (which is shown rather humorously at the end of the movie). Literally his ONLY necessity in life, were it not physically impossible, would be to satisfy his curiosity, nothing more. This characteristic is one of the primary reasons why his character is such a singular and incredible icon in the minds of millions around the world today. So it was with great surprise and happiness that I came to see this same trait apparent in Robert Downey, Jr.'s adaptation of Sherlock Holmes.
Now we get into some of the more humorous, if not accidental, similarities. A number of the movie's details were taken directly from "The Adventure of the Mazarin Stone." The first is the name of the villain, Lord Blackwood. Fans may remember him as Count Negretto Sylvius (Negretto is Italian for black and Sylvius is Latin for woods). Interestingly enough, Blackwoods was a competitor of the Strand (the publisher of Doyle's work). Blackwoods also rejected some of Doyle's early work, though the Mazarin story was written 40 years after the fact and Doyle was very successful by then. In any event, Blackwood was NOT some magician with an egg tooth (a tooth most baby snakes are born with to cut through their eggs).
Another common detail is the Crown Diamond, which is the Yellow Mazarin Stone (named for Cardinal Jules Mazarin[1602-1661], minister to Louis XIV). The large yellow stone hung around Irene Adler's neck in the movie. This is also the first and only story to mention that the 221B Baker Street apartment had multiple exits and a waiting room. The extra exit was through the bedroom which Sherlock employed to follow Irene early in the movie.
Let us continue with some obvious differences from Doyle's work. The first and most important difference between the Sherlock Holmes stories and the movie is Irene Adler. Though Ritchie got it right that she is the only female to outwit Sherlock and he strongly admired her for it (never admitted of course), they only met in one story. After, he referred to her as only "the woman" (which is humorously referenced at one point in the movie). In the books, she died after their interactions and did not divorce her husband.
Secondly, Watson was prideful, brave, and willing to go into battle with Sherlock. However, he was NOT arrogant nor was he argumentative with Sherlock. Typically he only made suggestions when frustrated with one of Sherlock's more quirky behaviors and Sherlock, being so overly polite to the point of condescension, acquiesced to his friend's requests. In the books, he did marry one woman (Mary Morstan) whom he met in "The Sign of Four," but she died before "The Adventure of the Empty House" (after which Watson moved back in to 221B Baker Street with Sherlock).
Thirdly, Sherlock was far more independent in the books than the movie described (the only reason I did not give the movie a 10). In fact, he did absolutely nothing to try and stop Watson from marrying Mary, nor did he seem to care much when Watson moved out. He would simply show up at Watson's door and announce some new mystery and Watson's curiosity compelled him to go along.
Fourth, professor James Moriarty was known about by Sherlock as a criminal long before anyone else. In fact, Sherlock had been trying to find some damning evidence on him for years prior to Moriarty's demise in "The Final Problem." Regardless, Sherlock often commented on Moriarty's superior intelligence and made a remark that he was an intellectual equal. On a side note, Mycroft, Sherlock's brother, is an intellectual superior to both Sherlock and Moriarty (at least by Doyle's descriptions).