A fun Victorian romp that works on that level but not much more than that.

Rating: Null/10 (19 January 2010)

This isn't Sherlock Holmes ... this is Guy Richie's Sherlock Holmes. Somehow, someone thought Holmes needs updating and how does Hollywood like to update something as quiet and collected as Holmes? Why by adding lots of action and some shirtless scenes, of course!
As Holmes and Watson have been transformed into wisecracking action heroes, Downey Jr enthusiastically hams it up as the intelligent layabout, while Law plays sidekick Watson as a annoyed babysitter to Holmes, who's also handy with a pistol.
The standouts are Strong as the effectively creepy 'sorcerer' but wasted are Reilly and a miscast beguiling temptress McAdams - both women look too modern for the period as does Downey Jr too. They all might as well have been listening to iPods as that's how out
The plot is pretty much a seeming resurrection and 'tonight Lords, we're going to take over the world' by means of 'black magic'. The homo erotic undertones of the bickering pair is glaringly obvious and initially amusing but gets tired pretty quickly. As for Holmes powers of deduction, it's pretty feeble here, like a particularly weak episode of CSI. Holmes just doesn't seem to have the great deductive mind he's made out to be. I don't find it wholly convincing. Him as a drunk, fine. As an intelligent mastermind? Not really.
I dislike Richie's visual style of slow-mo and speed-up, quite violent fight scenes. However, where I think the film main enjoyment lies, is in some good set-piece action scenes. Victorian London looks authentic enough(dirty and bustling with life) but as aforementioned, the anachronistic looking Downey Jr, McAdams and Reilly take me out of the period in scenes they appear.
The score by Hans Zimmer is another one of the strengths of the film - jaunty, tongue-in-cheek, dark(in places outside the main leitmotif) and memorable, it sets the tone of this barnstorming adventure well.
Overall: It can be enjoyed as a geezer type update of Holmes and is entertaining on that level, but lacks in other vital areas that make Conan Doyle's shrewd sleuth who he is - these two could just have been any other fictional Victorian adventures, to me. Fun, but quite insubstantial .