Holmes Update Could Have Been Told Better

Rating: 7/10 (1 January 2010)

Rachel Adams, Jude Law, & Robert Downey Jr. are the strengths of this film. The weakness is the complicated structure given to the film by Director Guy Richie. In this case the film might have been more effective telling the story more straight forward. While Richies film looks highly stylized, he gambles on losing members of his audience with the way he sequences it.
Richies idea is at times to drill into Sherlock Holmes head and reflect what Holmes plans are before he executes them, then have him execute them. He then has times where he has Holmes do something, then show how he did it afterwords. I was able to follow this.
The depiction of Holmes character is indeed an accurate one, and I give Richie credit for staying away from the Basil Rathbone styled Holmes. The performances of the cast and the atmosphere created for the film look very good on the screen which helps the film immensely.
Rachel Adams acts & looks great in this & it seems there are some decent sparks between her and Downey's Holmes. Think with more directing experience Richie might find he doesn't have to work as hard on style but do more with substance.