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Guy Ritchie’s revisionist take on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s infamous detective is a fun balls-to-the-wall action film. The basic storyline follows any of the traditional Sherlock Holmes stories, it’s just been pumped with so many steroids and action-movie clichés that it comes across more as a living cartoon version of the myth and not as a live-action film. Again, nothing wrong with that since it proves to be so rip-roaringly fun.
Robert Downey Jr., on paper, might sound like the oddest choice for Holmes, but it invests the character with the same eccentric braininess and darkness beneath the surface. Holmes was a drug addicted sleuth after all. That he got a Golden Globe nomination for this speaks to the level of his work. Even in big budget popcorn entertainment RDJ delivers performances that are quirky and engaging. And Mark Strong seems to have become the latest in the long line of British character actors who seem to portray every evil character in an established franchise or a reboot (Alan Rickman, Jason Isaacs and Gary Oldman all spring to mind). I’m waiting for him to appear in one of the final installments of Harry Potter, but that could just be me being silly. The main cast is rounded out by Jude Law – charming as ever and proving himself adept at action – and Rachel McAdams – beautiful, tough, pitch-perfect and terribly underutilized. She’s great at what she is asked to do and delivers the goods, but isn’t asked to deliver or do that much. Law, on the other hand, helps RDJ find that almost-but-not-quite gay streak within the characters that’s just too hilariously embellished in this outing.
And while it is a grand ol’ time to be had, it also ever-so-slightly ridiculous and could have benefited from a few more scenes of comedic interplay between Holmes and Watson or barely contained sensuality between Holmes and Irene Adler (the way McAdams can part her lips or arch an eyebrow can make any man melt). If not so the audience could breathe, then so all of the slow-motion set pieces and bare-knuckle boxing didn’t mesh into one supremely long fight scene.
I would also like to have seen a more quiet scenes to fully envelope and experience the richly textured and detailed world that Guy Ritchie has created for this version of the world’s most famous sleuth. It plays like something between a Victorian horror film, a Victorian film noir and graphic novelized version of the real thing. It’s quite lovely to behold and to just watch, but so much of it is given way to a manic energy that’s more eager to give a roller-coaster ride feeling than room to breath between screams as it twists, turns and drops you this way and that.
Sherlock Holmes plays like a summer movie, but it came out in time for awards season. It sounds like a contradiction in terms, but it somehow worked. It just goes to prove that summer popcorn entertainment need not be brainless and FX heavy to be a hit or enjoyable. It’s a fun little ride, and an interesting revisionist take on a century old character.
