Really fun, supercharged, within spec, worth seeing...

Rating: 9/10 (14 March 2010)

...if only to see for yourself whether the objections were justified.
I've read quite a few of the SH stories and a couple of the novels, and have stayed at the Sherlock Holmes Hotel in London on Baker Street, which is peppered with memorabilia from perhaps a century ago. Another seeding of my impressions of what SH should look and act like are of course the Granada television series starring the late Jeremy Brett. Everyone does different things with the characters and adapting the stories, and Ritchie's interpretation-- along with some decent acting-- are quite valid and within plausibility of the legendary yet fictional character's representation.
In fact, aside from being initially dismayed at (untrue) reports of anachronistic or non-canonical fighting scenes, the only things which made me wonder why the movie dared to include something which I didn't see fit, was that I hadn't read the SH story which might have explained or justified the inclusion!
The film was enjoyable and had a mystery to be solved, a few false leads to make it unpredictable, excellent cinematography and direction, crackling dialogue, a great transformation in portrayal as seen by Eddie Marsan and even Jude Law's mustache, seemingly authentic costuming, and a better use of Watson than as a dopey version of Ed McMahon (as we're used to seeing) or as a device to convey exposition to the audience-- which was done in another way.
Very well-crafted action movie with a cerebral, literary, and historical edge. Not offensive to SH fans, unless there's a bad pedantic apple in the bunch: I'm glad my friends' word-of-mouth trumped the trollerific nay-saying of the Great Unwashed & convinced me to see it. I'm going to bring more people along with me when I see it again!