Sherlock Holmes

Sherlock Holmes Unless you are one of my children (none of them have a television capable of receiving network broadcasts or cable or satellite) you must have seen the previews by now. This is Guy Ritchie’s (Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, Snatch) latest endeavor and it is a good one. I’ve been worried about him because he and Madonna (or “Masluta” as Newell and I like to say) recently got divorced, but he seems to have come out of it with his creative juices intact.
This is not your classic Sherlock Holmes, Lionel Barrymore movie. This is Ritchie’s reinvention of Holmes and Watson, and it worked very well for me. It is an action movie, a thrill a second, with a smart, pepper-shot screenplay, great acting, and a truly convoluted and twisty plot worthy of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
Robert Downey Jr. Plays Holmes with an odd but effective fake English accent, and Jude Law is the redoubtable Doctor Watson. The chemistry between the two is spot on, displaying a deeper, more complicated relationship than the books ever delved into. They have been turned into action heroes while managing to retain the spirit and core of the two characters and the insanely elaborate mysteries. Holmes is a martial arts devote. Ritchie employs a wonderful gimmick a few times during the film, which I found very entertaining. While in the midst of a fight (where he is usually losing) the action slows to very slow-motion as we hear Holmes predict his opponents next few moves and countering with strategies of his own, the slow action following the play-by-play. Then the action returns to normal speed as Holmes actually goes through the list of blows and counter punches—all based on his incredible attention to detail and the slightest of clues—in perfect precision and order, completely disabling the poor sap on the other side of his rampant physicality. Very effective, and Ritchie knows not to overdo it. Watson is a former Military physician who has served in various exotic locals and knows his way around a brawl as well, although not with the same panache as his erstwhile companion.
Each man in involved in a romantic relationship and they spend a good deal of time making one another’s relationship much more complicated than it needs to be. Watson is about to be married and Holmes is doing everything he can to undermine that situation.
The enemy is a practitioner of the occult arts, which seemingly renders Holmes’ rationality impotent, but fear not, he is well ahead of everyone, even if it seems as if he about to be killed at least twenty times during the course of the film while the entire British Aristocracy is under the thrall of the evil-doer.
An excellent supporting cast rounds out the mile-a-minute adventure and all is brought to a more or less acceptable finale.
It is rated PG-13 and that is about right. Lots of violence in the form of brawls and fist-fights, very little actual killing, and no profanity that I can recall. I would not take a sensitive ten-year old to this one, but a world-wise twelve-year old and up will enjoy it, if they are quick enough to keep up with the action and Holmes’s racing intellect. I thoroughly enjoyed it, Nita didn’t go, but my oldest daughter did (it was a kind of experimental outing—my first since the uh, “episode”) and she loved it as well. We recommend it.
P.S. It’s nice to be back in the saddle, more or less . . .