Not As Bad As Expected, But Still...

Rating: 7/10 (10 April 2013)

So they've "updated" Sherlock Holmes by turning him into a Victorian version of "James Bond"? I guess that's one way to avoid paying royalties to Ian Fleming's heirs, or Arthur Conan Doyle's for that matter, whose copyrights mostly expired in 2000. Before you can say "cheap ripoff," however, I will admit that this sequel accomplished the rare feat of surpassing the first, although given the caliber of Ritchie's earlier film, that couldn't have been difficult to accomplish. Nevertheless, I don't enjoy watching Robert Downey Jr fight in those wretched "Iron Man" and "Avengers" movies and I don't relish watching him fight in this movie either, so turning Sherlock Holmes into an "action hero" is a major turnoff for me. (I much prefer the updated BBC TV series starring Benedict Cumberbatch as a socially inept, sexually ambiguous Holmes.) Admittedly I am not a fan of Downey and his trademark deadpan one-liners, although they weren't as bad as usual this time around. I'd much rather watch handsome Jude Law, and it is an injustice that as Watson he has to play second fiddle to Downey. But I gave this film a not-dishonorable "7" because Downey and Law get to dance together, and share a few other vaguely, enjoyably homoerotic moments, otherwise I would have ranked the film lower.