It's hard to complain about having Holmes back on the case.
Movie review sherlock holmes 2009 movie#
It's a movie of big, bold strokes and somewhat crass commercial calculation, but if Ritchie succeeds in resurrecting this long-standing 19th-century icon for the 21st century (and the ending practically pleads for a sequel), I suspect most fans will want to wish him many happy returns. The "Old Smoke" probably hasn't looked this exciting for a century or more. A splendidly exorbitant fight sequence in a boatyard is like "Titanic" on fast-forward, and we can clearly see the Thames is the city's main thoroughfare. Tower Bridge is still under construction. There's a sterling sense of London as the boiler room of the Industrial Revolution. Ritchie and company are predictably impatient with demonstrations of Holmes' superior sleuthing - and perhaps forensics are best left to "CSI" these days - but if it's a travesty of Conan Doyle on one level, it's certainly an affectionate one, and smartly attuned to today's taste for slam-bang action and adventure.īest of all is the production design (most of it digitally created, presumably). If the mystery boils down to so much supernatural skullduggery, at least it chimes with Conan Doyle's own interest in spiritualism, and anyway, you could say the same about "The Hound of the Baskervilles." Rachel McAdams is fine as Irene Adler, Holmes' favorite femme fatale, but the screenwriters (four of them) don't seem to know quite what to make of her - just that the movie will play better if she's around. Often more interesting in supporting parts, Jude Law makes for an agreeable comic foil, and Kelly Reilly makes the most of a fleeting role as Watson's feisty fiancée, Mary. I like to imagine he's doffing his cap in the direction of Robert Stephens, who did something similar in Billy Wilder's underrated (and far more sophisticated) 1970 film "The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes." He's needier than his most celebrated predecessors in the part, Jeremy Brett and Basil Rathbone, but also more physical, less cerebral. And if we're quick to link Holmes' self-destructive impulses to the star's own checkered history, don't imagine the filmmakers haven't thought of that too.Īffecting an honorable upper-crust English accent, Downey angles for flip and steers on the right side of parody. But he's got that cutting cleverness - only a whisker from pure misanthropy - that's the character's most essential attribute. The game's afoot and Watson, who signed the death warrant after His Lordship's execution, is back at Holmes' side.ĭowney doesn't exactly look the part he's probably a foot shorter than the Holmes depicted in the famous illustrations in Strand magazine. It's only after Blackwood escapes - not from prison, but from the grave - that Holmes perks up. To add to Holmes' enervation, his Baker Street companion, the good doctor, has plans to be wed.
Movie review sherlock holmes 2009 series#
Still, "Iron Man" Downey is in great shape, even after the dejected detective succumbs to squalid self-pity after putting Lord Blackwood (Mark Strong) behind bars for a series of Jack the Ripper-like murders and failing to find another case worthy of his intellect. The books make mention of Holmes' prowess in the ring, but I don't recall any previous screen Sherlock stripping off for a bare-knuckle bout. This proves to be a bit of a party piece, and it comes with the dubious bonus of an instant replay for every blow. Holmes' first piece of deductive reasoning is to calculate the likely course of hand-to-hand combat with a heavyset goon - planning a combination of punches as if he were strategizing a game of chess. The archetypal crime-busting duo never looked more dynamic.īeginning with a hansom cab slamming through the cobbled streets of London, the movie sets off at a breakneck pace. He's also shaved at least 10 years off the great Baker Street sleuth and his faithful friend and chronicler, John Watson (played here by Robert Downey Jr. Right at home in the London criminal underworld, "Snatch" and "RocknRolla" director Guy Ritchie has injected his patented hustler humor and visual flash into Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Victorian era. (CNN) - It's Sherlock Holmes, but not as we know him. Robert Downey Jr., Jude Law are fine as Holmes and Dr.Film is fast-paced and has a lot of brio - which it needs to overcome script shortcomings.
"Sherlock Holmes" gives 19th-century detective a 21st-century sheen.
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