Truly captures the essence of Sherlock Holmes

Rating: 9/10 (14 January 2012)

Well I must admit that while I have not really been a fan of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes, I am a big fan of this movie. In fact movies like this have a tendency to make you rethink your prejudices in relation to the stories that they are based on. This is not always the case though, since despite liking the X-men movies, I really did not like the comics, and though I did buy a couple of graphic novels, I ended up giving them away pretty quickly.
After watching this film for probably the fifth time, I decided to see how true to form Ritchie's Sherlock Holmes was, and a little research suggested that while not necessarily identical, he has remain pretty faithful to the original character. Many of us consider (or at least I did) Sherlock Holmes as being a very prim and proper and upstanding type of character, to be blunt, a bore. That is how I seem to find most of the detective characters in detective books that I have encountered. Okay, Sam Spade is not exactly the type of guy that the average father would appreciate his daughter bringing home, but then again, neither is Sherlock Holmes.
Holmes is a driven man, but not driven by any specific purpose. He is a brilliant logical and deductive mind, and he is only content when this deductive mind is put to work. In the books, if he is between cases, he resorts to cocaine to keep his mind stimulated. This is brought out really well in the film, particularly in the fight scenes were you see him work through all of the actions that he needs to take to win the fight, and win he inevitably does. One of my favourite lines in this film is when he punches some guy in the ribs and says 'discombobulate' (whatever that means).
This movie has had an awful lot of thought put into it, and Robert Downey Junior simply seems to suit the character of Holmes. In fact, upon coming to this film and seeing the dark shadow of Sherlock Holmes running and jumping through the streets of London to stop Lord Blackwood from committing his crimes simply created a much darker and more mysterious character than I would have expected. Of course there is also the little touch where Holmes plays the violin, but without the bow. In the books it is suggested that Holmes does play the violin, but to our mind, we expect him to use the bow.
One of the other things in this film is the struggle between mysticism and science. Holmes is clearly a very logical and scientific person. Everything must have an explanation, and that explanation will become apparent through one's investigations. Holmes is able to pick up the smallest clues, link them together, and in most cases, reach the correct conclusion. Not always, as can be seen when he gets his reading of Mary partially wrong, but mostly. Dr Watson is the clear contrast to Sherlock Holmes. He is a very prim and proper figure, a member of the intellectual elite (he is a doctor), and is Holmes only friend. However, while he is loyal to Holmes, he also wants to live the proper life, that is get married, and this does create tension between the two. Of the other characters, there is Inspector LeStrade, who, I suspect, is a bumbling idiot who pretty much can attribute his success to hanging off of Holme's coat tails.