An entertaining swashbuckler that gives a great character a new lease on life.

Rating: 9/10 (28 December 2009)

Sherlock Holmes has been identified by the Guinness Book of World Records as one of the most frequently used fictional characters in history. Appearing first in the 60 stories of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, he has subsequently went on to make hundreds (if not thousands) of appearances in novels, film, television, and radio, with the part essayed by a number of very talented actors, with Basil Rathbone and Jeremy Brett the most notable. Adventures on the big screen have been slim pickings for a while (the last really notable one was 1985's "Young Sherlock Holmes", obviously a bit of a break with traditional formulas) as TV adaptations have been the go-to medium. This new entry aims to jumpstart a new cinema franchise and introduce Holmes as a living character to a new generation of fans (as opposed to just being a cultural touchstone), with the assistance of talents like Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law. This has been met with understandable wariness by longtime fans, but I would say that overall the movie succeeds admirably at its goal. Some spoilers follow.
The bare bones of the plot (summarized in innumerable places elsewhere): Holmes (Downey Jr.) and Watson (Law) crack the case of a series of ritualistic murders and arrest the man responsible, Lord Blackwood (Mark Strong; doing a lot of villain-work this year, and looking like a British crossbreed of Andy Garcia and Stanley Tucci). However, even after Blackwood is hung by the neck until dead, trouble continues, and it appears that he may indeed have risen from the grave thanks to the black magic he claimed to possess. Holmes is back on the trail of the seemingly-resurrected villain, while former acquaintance Irene Adler (Rachel McAdams) reenters the picture, in the employ of an anonymous stranger. And on the domestic front, Watson is getting engaged to the nice Mary Morstan (Kelly Reilly) and preparing to move out of his Baker Street bachelor flat, much to Holmes' annoyance.
I would say that this film has been somewhat poorly-represented by its trailers and promotional material (not poorly served, though, if the box office returns are any measure), which plays up the action to a point that will turn off many diehards (though one imagines they'll still see it to feel the joy of bilious outrage). While there is certainly more physicality to this production than to your average BBC adaptation, director Guy Ritchie retains the core of Holmes as a cerebral man (and, truth be told, Doyle's original knew his way around a fight, even if the author didn't spare much prose on depicting it). Tastes change a bit, and, so long as the core of the character isn't lost, it's fine by me to show him in a few scraps.
Downey's Holmes is a brilliant/eccentric mind with addiction issues, and rather poor hygiene (I tend to think of him as being more precise, even when troubled, but whatever). But he's always on top of things. Saints be praised, though, for Jude Law's Watson, who will hopefully go a long way toward rescuing the character from the bumbling ghetto created by Nigel Bruce's characterization and carried on ever since. Law gives us a strong, confident Watson who is an indispensible part of Holmes' operation, and possessed of considerable deductive prowess of his own. The film really hangs on the Holmes/Watson interaction, and Downey and Law hit it off marvelously. The film opens in media res (a smart move, really; it's not like anyone is unaware of who these characters are and how they work), and you get a palpable sense of two people who've been working together for a very long time. The ladies threatening to intrude on this male-bonding exercise, McAdams and Reilly, are both fine, though the writers sometimes seem a bit insure of what to do with Irene (they know enough about the mythos to know that Holmes isn't the romantic type, even if this is a bit more in that direction than most depictions, so this is a fairly mild case of Catwoman). Mark Strong glowers and growls sufficiently as the villain.
While heavier on the action than your typical Holmes story, and a lot grimier in its production design (true to life, one imagines; outside of the upper class, Victorian London wasn't the cleanest of places), Ritchie and his writers retain a lot of the core Holmes story aspects. A villain with seemingly mystical powers must be confronted, and Holmes' logical mind must inevitably pierce the veil and uncover the rational explanation behind it all (outlined in a marvelous little climactic scene). And, as we find out, Holmes has been slowly building his case through the whole movie, but rarely letting anything on. The film also does a pretty good job of making Holmes' end-of-film explanation visually interesting, rather than just a dull monologue.
The film ends with some quite obvious sequel setup, and given the box office numbers, it's pretty likely we'll see a "Sherlock Holmes 2" in a few years; I welcome it.