Holmes, Sherlock Holmes

Rating: 6/10 (5 January 2010)

He's lean! He's mean! He's a kick-ass crime fighter and the baddest dude this side of Pickadilly Circus! He's Holmes, Sherlock Holmes!
Huh?
When it was announced that macho director Guy Ritchie was going to make a Sherlock Holmes movie, with the intention of turning the renown sleuth into a rough and tumble action hero, there were more than a few eyebrows raised. With the announcement that the part would be taken over by the very American, very sardonic Robert Downey Jr. further puzzlement followed. The mystery being "Why?"
Holmes is a legendary character, and his iconic image is firmly implanted in our pop culture. The continuing respect for the character is rooted in that image, not in the actual quality of the mysteries that were devised for Holmes to solve by his creator Arthur Conan Doyle. The prevailing image of Holmes as being tall, slender, somewhat solemn and the epitome of Edwardian gentlemanliness is hard to shake, whether the actor in the part plays it stoically (Basil Rathbone), neurotically (Nicol Williamson) or comedic (George C. Scott). The decision to give us a Sherlock who is violent, belligerent and of questionable hygiene is the biggest mystery in SHERLOCK HOLMES – if Ritchie didn't like the traditional Holmes, then why did he bother to make a film centered on him?
In fairness, Doyle's Holmes was not above resorting to physical violence and using a firearm now and again. But those were on rare occasions, the traditional Holmes had intellect as his primary weapon and that sufficed quite nicely. Ritchie's detective comes off as a pistol-packing hooligan who frequents Fight Club matches, whose residence at 227B Baker Street could best be described as squalid and whose personal appearance could generously be called perpetually scruffy. While the traditional Holmes was of the upper class, but who could move around among the lower classes, it is unlikely that this Holmes would be comfortable or be accepted among the titled. In essence, the filmmakers have taken the less savory aspects of the Holmes adventures and moved them to the forefront, for reasons that just aren't clear. Maybe the filmmakers thought a character with genteel qualities would just be too uncommercial for modern audiences. That is rather sad. There just was no call to re-imagine Sherlock Holmes as being down and dirty.
That is not to say that Downey gives a bad performance as Holmes, only that he comes off as being Holmes in name only. He gives us a passable British accent and plays the part with a degree of shifting moods. Indeed, had he not been playing Sherlock Holmes, and had instead been cast as an original character, say, an Irwin Smithers or a Nigel Butterworth, then maybe his work wouldn't seem so vaguely disappointing. A bit more of his impish sense of humor – which added so much to IRON MAN -- would have been a welcomed addition and helped ease in the character as a tongue in cheek homage.
But to pretend for a moment this isn't a Sherlock saga, how is the film? Well, Holmes' attempts to sabotage the impending marriage between Jude Law's Dr. Watson and his future bride, Mary, gives the film an unexpected homo-erotic subtext that is amusing and rather sweet. Beyond that, with it's impressive sets and CGI effects, elegantly overplayed supervillain, colorful assassins, overly choreographed out-of-nowhere fight sequences and a long-winded and convoluted narrative about a super secret organization and a megalomaniac's plot to take over the world all makes the film seem less a Sherlock Holmes adventure and more like an Edwardian version of a James Bond movie. In the end, it would seem that Ritchie tried to tackle one British literary icon and inadvertently made a film about another one -- though still as a grungy and unpleasant recreation.
The box office success of SHERLOCK HOLMES could inspire other nefarious re-imaginings; like Jackie Chan as martial arts master Charlie Chan. Or maybe Jean-Claude Van Damme as an intense adventurer named Hercule Poirot. I can see it now: "She's hot! She's sexy!! She's the Hell-raising Mistress of Crime!!! Angelina Jolie IS Miss Jane Marple!!!!"
Well, maybe not.