Good Acting, Average Story

Rating: 7/10 (7 January 2010)

Acting: Robert Downey Jr. is awesome at any role, and I'm glad that he's finally getting the recognition he deserves. He does a great job of making Holmes quirky and borderline unlikeable at times, but he just has this innocent sort of charm that makes us like him. Jude Law plays a great Dr. Watson. I have to agree with Moviebob in saying that it is nice to see a Watson that isn't played dumb or flat so that Sherlock looks more interesting by comparison. Rachel McAdams... was hot! She's an excellent femme fatale-ish sort of gal and seriously, she should be more famous than she is. Between Mean Girls, the Notebook, Wedding Crashers, and her best role (in my opinion) Red Eye, she really should be a household name by now. In many ways the actors were the main attraction in this movie and the banter between Jude Law and Downey made this movie. A
Visuals: This movie had a great steam punk look to it and was generally a feast for the eyes. The fight scenes where Holmes would plot out each of his moves and the anticipated counter move was an item of beauty. Now, since I deleted my direction category in favor of a sound category, I'll attack the director here: This movie needed to be shorter. At least by ten minutes, probably closer to twenty minutes shorter. B
Sound: The music was quite epic and, again, there were no foleys that kicked me out of the movie. The general sound of steam being released fit the whole steam punk atmosphere. B
Story: Eh... I really don't like mystery movies or books as a genre. There are exceptions, but as a general rule they just don't pull me in. To the masses, they're good for maybe two viewings, once to try and figure it out as it plays out and another to check and make sure the writer didn't pull a fast one on the audience. The goal, I suppose, is to make the audience try to solve the mystery with Sherlock Holmes. But, all movies are to a certain extent a fantasy instead of reality, so logic goes out the window when the writer uses lots of supernatural elements or applied phlebotnium to drive the plot, making any real world speculations on our part a general waste of time. Hence, I never even try to solve the mystery and never get pulled in because of it.
All right, enough about the genre, how's this particular mystery? Well, it's okay. I cared more about the banter between characters than solving the mystery, so I thought they could have cut a lot of the clues and speculations segments and gotten the running time down some. It would have made me happier. The villain's overall plan was good, but I think that a suspense thriller approach of letting the audience know his plan but not Holmes would have kept me interested when I tuned out, but I prefer thrillers over mysteries any day. C
Overall: It's not a bad movie, and it seems to be fairly faithful to the Holmes mythology (even if he is a bit more physical than he ever was before... but I only read The Hound of the Baskervilles, so my knowledge of Holmes is limited to what my roommate, Robert, who read every Sherlock Holmes story ever, tells me) and ultimately it doesn't matter. This movie creates its own continuity and seems to stay consistent. I recommend this movie to fans of the players involved (Downey, Law, McAdams) and say that it's probably worth sending between five and eight dollars to see, but anymore than that might leave you feeling ripped off. B
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