Sherlock Holmes is unlike any Guy Ritchie film (well I really shouldn't say that as I haven't seen any other of his films) but I say this because, first of it is a period piece yet it is still filled with frenetic action sequences that I believe is a Ritchie film signature.
Anyways, thanks to a friend, I got to see an advance screening of Sherlock Holmes and after some pre-film hiccups, the film started with Holmes (Robert Downey Jr.) and Watson (Jude Law) saving a young woman from a Satanic ritual performed by the villanous Lord Blackwood (Mark Strong).
The team of Holmes and Watson successfully capture Blackwood who was also responsible for the murders of five other women and he is sentenced to hang, which he does but someone he rises from the dead to continue on his evil plans.
Throughout the film, we have Watson trying to leave Holmes so he can settle down with Mary Morstan (a sickly looking Kelly Reilly) but someone, like the Godfather, he thinks he's out but Holmes always lures him back in.
A distraction to Holmes as he tries to thwart Blackwood is Rachel McAdams' Irene Adler, an American who was hired by a mysterious man to manipulate Holmes to get something he is after that I won't spoil here.
I haven't read any of the Sherlock Holmes stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle but I think that the screenwriters have done a servicable job in presenting us with a good mystery but wish that it wasn't so stereotypical. Blackwood is such a stock villain, someone who wants to rule the world. Also, I think I never felt that any of the characters were in danger of the traps that Blackwood set-up for our intrepid duo.
Downey Jr did a servicable Holmes presenting us with his classic characteristics, his keen sense of observation, his use of logic, him playing the violin and his drug-use but I somehow felt that Downey Jr. was slightly miscast as this iconic character. Don't get me wrong, Downey Jr. did an okay British accent but someone I think an actual British actor should have played the part like maybe Kenneth Branagh or even Colin Firth.
As well, I felt that McAdams was very wooden as Adler. She didn't imbede the character with any spunk or was the femme fatale that the character is supposed to have.
Also, Ritchie paints his Victorian London with shades of grey and the entire movie looks bleak and depressing.
The one thing I did enjoy was Jude Law as Watson. He is the best looking Watson ever and he doesn't portray him as the bumbling baffoon that Nigel Bruce did in the 1930s Sherlock Holmes film were Holmes was played famously by Basil Rathbone nor was old as Edward Hardwicke's Watson in Jeremy Brett's (the most reverred Holmes) BBC Sherlock Holmes.
When Law and Downey Jr. are on screen together, their bromance showed real comraderie that I found enjoyable.
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