Ghosts in the Machine

Rating: Null/10 (26 December 2009)

Two really good things here, and one bad.
The bad is that though there are some good components, the thing never gels. Richie has only one formula for humor, and it doesn't work here — probably because illogically we want to think this is real. In his earlier works, Richie depended on his ability to create an alternative universe on top of movie clichés. Here he must build on something more fundamental and fails.
One good thing is how the writers mined what was behind the Sherlock phenomenon. At the time the stories appeared, there was a huge battle on for the hearts of the London street. It was — dare I say — where we are today with the Cairo street. Darwin had presented his theory, and a rush of other scientific discoveries were being made. It really seemed to many that the world was amenable to logic and that at some point logical deduction should come to understand human behavior.
Criminal behavior was seen as some sort of deviance from the healthy and this potentially easier to grasp. So within Londo (and Paris) a strong backlash of spiritualism grew. Magic was the antidote to science, pure and simple. The irony was that the creator of Sherlock was himself the most prominent of the champions of spiritualism. His fictional character was created as something of a cartoon joke. But Sherlock became so popular that Doyle found it impossible to kill him off — and write about more "real" things.
The failure of logic to describe human behavior continues to the present in our AI disappointments. (A smaller percentage of Americans believe the science of evolution than did the Londoners of 120 years ago.) So the story here is apt and shows both an understanding of this audience and that of the past. People really want to believe in magical stuff.
The more interesting thing is from a cinematic perspective. Suppose you understood the Sherlock stories, and you understood that they were centered on stringing causal agency so that it makes sense. Suppose you wanted to translate this to film: what is essentially a mental process. How would you do it? The standard for the last 75 years was to wait until the end where the detective's though processes were explained. As he or she would recount the reasoning process, scenes that you have already seen would be replayed so that they "made sense."
Here we have the first improvement on this in a mainstream film. We do see this standard device at the end. But we see variations on it all through the movie, including several times the "working out" what to do next. There are some sideways episodes as well, like the replay of how he stalked his lover in disguise — through a circus! This is really intelligent cinematic thinking. Hooray for Guy! This is enough for me to recommend this. But don't expect a successful film.
Downey is great, as always. Rachel McAdams has a strange role to play. Her character really does appear in the original stories as a love interest, but she seems too manipulatable here.
Ted's Evaluation -- 2 of 3: Has some interesting elements.