good performances hampered by indifferent script

Rating: 5/10 (4 January 2010)

Well, what do you know? Guy Ritchie has gone all high-tech and mega-budget on our arses in "Sherlock Holmes," the umpteenth movie incarnation of the world's most famous literary detective.
As embodied by Robert Downey Jr., this Holmes is no brandy-sniffing, pipe-smoking effete intellectual, spending his time peering at clues through an enlarged magnifying-glass, but rather a rough-and-tumble, athletic bad boy who boxes in his spare time, swan dives into the Thames to escape a villain, and performs more acts of gravity-defying derring-do than 007 on a busy day. In this installment, Holmes is locked in mortal combat with the dreaded Lord Blackburn, a murderous cult leader who miraculously returns from the dead after being hanged for his crimes. Jude Law plays Dr. Watson, Holmes' friend, confidante and personal physician, who is thinking of dissolving their crime-fighting partnership in favor of blessed domesticity in the form of marriage to one Mary Morstan (Kelly Reilly). Rounding out the cast is Rachel McAdams as Holmes' one true love who just happens to be entangled in Blackburn's nefarious schemes.
As written by Robert Michael Johnson, Anthony Peckham and Simon Kinberg, "Sherlock Holmes" is long and loud and filled with enough explosions and detonations to keep the most restless 21st Century action movie fan rooted firmly to his seat. But all the stunt work and pyrotechnics are ultimately wasted in the service of one of those trite and tiresome plot-to-take-over-the-world scenarios that have become practically de rigueur in the world of big budget spectaculars these days. The Victorian Era period detail is nice, but it would have been a great deal nicer had cinematographer Philippe Rousselot seen fit to crank up the lighting a notch or two so we might actually be able to SEE some of it (hopefully, this flaw will be rectified in the DVD version).
That leaves us pretty much with the acting, which is dependably good given the caliber of the players involved. So revel in the performances and ignore the rest.