Sherlock Holmes (2009)

Released December 26, 2009

Robert Downey Jr.’s version of the famous detective is a dishevelled manic-depressive just as likely to outwit you with his fists as he is his brain. There’s not a deerstalker in sight. Berating modern Hollywood for turning him into an action hero and expanding the story to mythic superhero-like proportions will only prevent you from enjoying one the most purely fun entertainments of the year.

To be fair, many of the elements foregrounded in Guy Richie’s blockbuster are, at least peripherally, drawn from the original stories. Holmes was a trained boxer and a talented bare-knuckle fighter, a trait played up in a delicious blend of Richie’s hyper-kinetic slow motion and Holmes renowned deductive skill as he prefigures the exact blows and injuries necessary to incapacitate an opponent. He was fiercely intelligent and an occasional drug user. He did have little regard for the tidiness of his flat (which is littered with papers, trinkets and half-built inventions), and he was not exactly highly skilled in social situations. For that, he required the more sensible and grounded Dr. Watson. In this incarnation he is played by Jude Law and is more of an equal than an assistant. Their banter, energetically delivered by the two stars, forms the heart of the film.

We open with a tremendous action sequence, accompanied by a thunderously superb Hans Zimmer score, in which our heroes try to prevent the villainous Lord Blackwood (Mark Strong) from completing a ritual sacrifice. Holmes is drawn out from his subsequent drug-induced slumber when it appears Blackwood, hanged for his crimes, has risen from the grave and is countinuing his meddlings in black magic and the occult. Blackwood’s scheme rivals that of a Bond villain, though the real mastermind lurks ominously in the shadows. At least, that is, until the sequel.

While there is one extravagant set piece too many, the pace is brisk, the action clever and the CGI evocation of Victorian London stylish. Like Ironman, though, Holmes belongs to Downey Jr., his flippant but layered take on the sophisticated sleuth surely to be added to the Jeremy Brett and Basil Rathebone pantheon.