Carl the Critic: Sherlock Holmes

Rating: 8/10 (10 November 2010)

Guy Ritchie is the British equivalent of Stephen Spielberg here in the US. He has great talent, he works with big named actors and the movies he makes are usually successful because everyone knows who he is. But unlike Spielberg, Ritchie is a film maker that is know as a formalist, where the film is all about "does everything look good?", rather than the realistic style of film making where one would ask "could this actually happen?"
"Sherlock Holmes" is a perfect example of this, because you don't care if the story good, (if there really was one, it just seemed too labyrinth like, and any where you turn could get you lost or going in circles.) But a movie doesn't need a story to be good, it just needs to look good (which this film does), sound good (which this film does thanks to both the sound and music departments), and have very strong and likable actors (which this film does for the most part.)But the majority of the film was about Robert Downey Jr. kicking some hardcore butt, giant explosions, very well executed sense of humor and the overall mood of the film matched perfectly with the setting (and vice versa.)
Was this film like the original Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Doyle? You bet your sweet lippy it's not. Of course it is nothing like the original Sherlock Holmes, because Holmes was just an English detective, as opposed to the film where he was an English detective and at the same time an Irish Cage fighter.But that is not important! Mr. Ritchie just took Sir. Arthur's classic character and made him his own.
There were a few times where I was confused, the "story" that the film was trying to tell got a little too detailed, and I felt that scenes where Holmes shows how he was going to beat up the other guy in slow motion step-by-step before he really beat the guy up was repetitive and pointless. But besides for that, I really enjoyed the film, and Guy Ritchie has some extraordinary talent as a film maker. I just hope he doesn't screw up the sequel to this, and Mr. Ritchie I am still waiting for the release of the sequel to "Rock and Rolla."