Sherlock Holmes (2009)

Review:

If you want to know what Guy Ritchie’s “Sherlock Holmes” is like, imagine “Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels” or “Snatch” and then put them in the late 1800s and add Sherlock Holmes. If you are imagining the most kinetic cinematic rendition of “Sherlock Holmes” ever, you’re probably not far off the mark.

Indeed, “Sherlock Holmes” doesn’t relent too much. It keeps a rapid pace and doesn’t quite care if you’re not connecting the dots as quickly as Sherlock Holmes. Robert Downey Jr. plays Holmes with a sort of manic dishevelment. His own living quarters at 221B are a mess but his mind is forever organizing minute details and usually alienating a friend or two in the process.

Watson (Jude Law) is an intelligent sidekick, always feeling obliged to lend a hand or a prognosis. Instead of the typically daft Watson of cinema history, Law plays Watson with a certain cunning and wry humor that a hero like Holmes desperately needs.

The plot of the film seems half baked. It concerns an evil occult leader Lord Blackwood (Mark Strong) who is hanged for murdering five women in a sacrificial ritual. When Blackwood mysteriously returns from the grave, Holmes is called in to investigate. As is typical in all mysteries, the villain gets away with a bunch of crimes is foiled before he can perpetrate the biggest crime he was intending to commit the whole time. Sorry if I gave away that this film ends with Holmes triumphant.

The real strength of “Sherlock Holmes” is its look and energy. The sets are marvelously macabre and Ritchie does a good job synthesizing them with a CGI rendition of 1800s London. The cinematography is energetic but never confuses the action – I particularly enjoyed when Sherlock Holmes anticipates his next eight moves in a fight and then executes them with flawless precision. I also liked a scene in a butchery that served as a throwback to the old silent film cliché of a damsel in distress tied up and being conveyed towards a buzz saw.

Rachel McAdams plays Ira Adler, the presumed love interest of Holmes but she seems more like an afterthought; her only real purpose in the film is to give precedent for a sequel. But in the end, if you can just sit back and relax, “Sherlock Holmes” is pure popcorn and you’ll like it.

Rating:

On a scale of one to Casablanca this film is a “Matrix Reloaded” (2003).

Rationalization:

Don’t enter this movie thinking that by its end you’ll come out wiser, or better, or more thoughtful, or with your thoughts provoked. “Sherlock Holmes” is an action movie with a slight mystery at its center. There are some excellent sequences and great one-liners, but it never instills you with the same terror or wonder that you find in other mysteries like “Rear Window” (1954) or “Se7en” (1995) but it is way better than most action movies coming out today (i.e. “G.I. Joe: Rise of Cobra” (2009))