The Plot beats the special effects in Sherlock Holmes

Rating: 9/10 (27 December 2009)

Wow, the plot for Sherlock Holmes could have been used in a movie without the special effects and the almost annoying fight sequences.
This movie was a fun house of plotting, special effects, and Downey channeling various actors. Jude Law as well as the supporting cast did their job quite well, I have never seen Jude Law act in anything that I liked, so this was surprise.
The plot could have gotten out of hand, ala Wild, Wild, West, but it didn't. I won't spoil the secret, but I thought that Sherlock was going to go off the track of being a realist.
Robert Downey channels Charlie Chaplin in few scenes, watch for the quiet moments and in one of the fight scenes. He also needs to send a check to Dustin Hoffman for stealing his persona in the scene where Sherlock states he is a professional while handcuffed to the bed. Other scenes shows that Downey understands the physical science of Hollywood and flows with it. Jude Law and the two female roles struggle with the physics in their movements, Jude often forgets he has a bad leg and it shows in some of the scenes, nothing major.
Speaking of physics, the movie does use "Hollywood" physics in a few scenes, not in the annoying way that most movies lately do, but they are there. For instance, a massive object like a ship that is propped up by poles isn't going to slide down a "way", it is going to fall on it's side. But the scene works, and no one except mechanical engineers will likely notice the physic problems.
Spoiler: There is one scene where the "Hollywood" science breaks down, Holmes holds up a rat tail that indicates that a gas will contain arsenic (arsine). Arsine, according to the plot, will flow into a chamber with good guys and bad guys in it. Then a little later he states that the bad guys have received an immunity to arsenic. Good luck on that one, there isn't an antidote to arsenic, if you are poisoned with arsenic, you will likely die. However, the concentration would have to be very high to kill instantly, in reality, it would take up to 3 days for arsine to kill the people in the chamber. But it isn't noticeable and certainly the plot wouldn't work without the bad science, I didn't think about it till I left the theater.
Villain's machinery: Poorly designed, lot's of failure points, but fits into the plot and flow of the movie nicely, unlike the awful ending in a movie like Wild, Wild, West.
Also, in a world that isn't used to what happens when you close the flue on a coal fire place, which Holmes does in one scene, the smoke accumulation seems OK. But the fact is that smoke goes up and doesn't lay along the floor. In the movie, the smoke is clearly made up of either a software particle cloud, water or dry ice which lays on the floor and then moves up. If it was a software particle cloud, hopefully the special effects people will fix that in future productions.
The special effects and background had the feeling that it was similar to the "Secret Adventures of Jules Verne", not a bad thing. The problem with that type of "blue screen" is that the actors have to be darkly lite, even in scenes that they should have angle lights. This seems to be lazy work on the part of post production.
Sound was well done, but loud, I'll be wearing ear protection to any movies that I go to the theater this year. The subsonic sounds were intense in the early part of the movie, so make sure you go before you go, if you get my meaning.
Overall, you need to see this movie in the theater, it is worth it!