A nice, high-priced cartoon.

Rating: 2/10 (15 December 2011)

Has anyone noticed how LOUD motion pictures have become? Ear-splitting special effects always signify empty Hollywood pot boilers, and this installment is certainly no different. As fantastic an actor as Robert Downey is, I feel that the biggest flaw in this film is the casting. He's so short, so dark, and so grungy that he reminds me of a young Al Pacino in "Panic in Needle Park" playing the heroin addict. Comparing him to the Sherlock Holmes versions of the past (like the incomparable Basil Rathbone) made me cringe. And paring him with Jude Law only added to the enormous mismatch (that same sex dance scene at the ball made him look like Downey's gay lover -- I can't believe that in Victorian England that this little stunt didn't even raise an eyebrow!! In those times, he would have been sent to prison at hard labor for the rest of his life). Then, all of those life saving measures that "Doctor" Law administered on Holmes hadn't even been INVENTED for another hundred years!!! Chest compressions with a direct shot of adrenalin into the heart? Not. It reminded me a rewrite of "ER," as out of sync as dinosaurs walking down Madison Avenue, a suspension of disbelief that I was simply unable to make. SH2 will certainly make the studio millions, then the inevitable sequel... Sherlock Holmes XVI, anyone?? Better than Prosac.