review from a Holmes aficionado

Rating: 3/10 (3 January 2010)

To say I have a lot to do with Sherlock Holmes would be an understatement. For quite some time, I lived and breathed Holmes and the world that Arthur Conan Doyle wrote of. It all began when I was 12 years old and crossed paths with the TV-series produced by Granada, where Jeremy Brett played Holmes. My mind expanded, not only by seeing the most powerful and well-known private consulting detective in the world trip the light amazing through the aid of a seven-per-cent solution of cocaine in "The Sign of Four", but because Brett was The One. I knew he _was_ Holmes. And slowly my obsession took shape. I watched the Rathbone films, started - granted, at a much later age - following Holmes' adventures through the short-stories, then the novels, then more films before stumbling onto the web and Leslie S. Klinger's "The New Annotated Sherlock Holmes", an ubiquitous tome for all those impaired by the virus to know all. To compare. To sketch out paths, know how Holmes came to certain conclusions and to eradicate him from guilt (where Doyle made some logical errors in the stories about Holmes; which are, of course, not errors at all...). In short, yes, I love the Sherlock Holmes universe. Of course all aided by my anglophilia and the fact that I, severely interested in serial-killers, have followed the world of Jack The Ripper very closely from a young age; that age is approximately the very same as that of Holmes'. It all blends and comes together, deerstalker, blood, London and awe. Ooh, I love it.
And here comes Guy Richie with a film, an American actor (Robert Downey Jr.) as Holmes and Jude Law as a quite acrobatic Watson. These two are about to part ways as Watson is to marry, and Holmes falls head-long into a slump of sorts, not wanting Watson to leave him. Along comes Lord Blackwood, the most acerbic villain, ever. He dresses goth-cum-Gestapo and acts Most Evil in the most tawdry manner, merely being a wooden plank at best. Oh, we get it. He's bad. And Downey-Holmes? Most of the time he displays his ways of applying logic to win by fighting. Holmes knew how to fight, and despite preferring mind to rule over matter, Richie has apparently thought the film to be at its best through brawn rather than brain.
And comedic passings, for the dark, musky men who seek out Holmes' destruction are all very furrowed brows and simply lead. I went to the cinema with an open mind, having seen the trailer and not thinking about the consequences; I let myself see this without trying to see Downey-Holmes as Holmes, as with the rest of the characters. Marsan-Lestrade was fair, but definitely not McAdams-Adler, who was a faint memory of the ephemeral and intelligent person from The Canon. Well, intelligence pushed aside, was there a saving grace? Yes, the film was quite entertaining. It reminded me of "Young Sherlock Holmes", a 1985 film made with heart with no basis in The Canon, where the young Holmes and Watson meet up and try to thwart an evil empire as run by cultists. A few non-basic elements from the film were snatched from The Canon as well, e.g. the coach-ride from "The Greek Interpreter", and Holmes' guessing the identity of a person as in "A Scandal In Bohemia". But, also pushing The Canon aside, was there anything to this? Yes, I'd say an action-filled blockbuster aimed for the American-international market through slightly English eyes, stirring up a couple of laughs, awakening my boyish need for adventure-films. I like Downey Jr.'s acting, even though this film did not require any subtleties, never mind the masterful acting that Brett performed in said TV-series. Law did good. McAdams was boring. Of course there'll be a sequel to this film, and of course I'll see it, but I daresay I won't be paying for it.