No Black Arts For Sherlock Holmes

Rating: 4/10 (12 January 2010)

Those fans of the sleuth of Baker Street, let alone those who are devoted to the BBC series with Jeremy Brett will be aghast at what Guy Ritchie has wrought on the big screen. Not to mention those of us who remember Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce.
Dusting off the English accent he perfected in Chaplin, Robert Downey, Jr. plays the redoubtable sleuth with Jude Law as Doctor John Watson. But as for the characters that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle created, these two might well have had different names all together. They certainly are one antagonistic pair of roommates.
In fact Dr. Watson is tired of Sherlock's pleasure seeking where he's been reduced to a little more than a dope connection. He wants to marry a nice girl played by Kelly Reilly and settle down. He's packed and ready to move when one of Holmes's old cases comes back to haunt him.
Holmes put away serial killer Lord Blackwood played by Mark Strong, a nobleman who would have made the Marquis DeSade look like Mister Rogers. Strong is hung for his crimes, but later his grave turns out to be empty and new horrors are happening and awaiting London. It's up to Holmes to stop it.
To do it, Downey makes Holmes an action figure and only in The Adventures Of Sherlock Holmes, the second of the Rathbone series was Holmes ever this much of a macho dude. It might be fun for fans, but I like my Holmes as cerebral as Conan Doyle wrote him.
The film does convey the atmosphere of Victorian London no doubt, but Arthur Conan Doyle would never recognize his creation.