(Rated PG-13 for some suggestive material, intense sequences of violence & action): Sir Arthur Conan Doyle & his faithful followers would fiercely denounce this anti-hero portrayal of the celebrated sleuth, turning him into a slovenly James Bond, an action-oriented, flamboyantly crude deducer residing in his decidedly unwholesome Baker Street residence with side-kick Watson who is less a foil, often matching him in astuteness but surpassing him in love interests.
Variations on the Holmes character have popped up in the past, notably Nicholas Meyer's Holmes encounter with Sigmund Freud in "The 7% Solution," so why not push the envelope still farther?
Gone is the pipe and deerstalker hat (in lieu of which the actor himself decided on a worn-down fedora). Holmes is laid-back, vulgar, a modern Errol Flynn in his dering-do, quick with his fists and & tactless in the modern anti-heroic persona that has come to appeal to modern audiences in deference to Doyle's rigidly proper society of the early 20th century.
On the other hand, Doyle, with his interest in the occult, might have appreciated the element of mystery surrounding a subculture of peers headed by a Moriarty-type sorcerer with plans to overtake the Houses of Parliament in one felled swoop - prevented, eventually, by Holmes, Watson & a couple of unlady-like femmes as they encounter, then survive at the last moment, dozens of death-defying situations. All the unnecessary scenes, briefly introduced into the action, you've seen time & again in previews for months.
Simultaneously, there is an amazingly accurate re-creation of London's streets, Picadilly Circus, St. Paul's Cathedral, a partially completed London Bridge & the Thames bordered by a low turn-of-the-century skyline, against which move people & transportation of the times. Writer/director Guy Ritchie has taken great pains to bring an accuracy if not tenor of the period, not just in architecture, but in artifacts; the results are remarkable, and in vast scope photographer Robert Maillot has recorded it all, from dank dungeon-like rooms to stark-shadowed mews, with painstaking care.
The cast is uniformly fine, with an almost too self assured Robert Downey in the lead, backed by an equally assured Jude Law as his partner, and Rachel McAdams as a wily con artist. To keep us on our toes, editor James Herbert has crammed the narrative progression with flashy jump cuts & flashbacks or flashforwards to explain & astonish. Hans Zimmer's music, so wonderfully appropriate in the last Batman flick, here is atmospherically rusty with the use of wheezy instruments & a broken-down piano, adding to the sly fun of this 128-minute romp.
The entire set-up hints strongly at a sequel, and why not? The packed crowds at this performance surely indicate good chances for another action-packed, death-defying, updated Holmes in any number of future re-creations, even, perhaps with hounds on a moor. (Grade: B+)
Alumni Relations