With a supposed supernatural nemesis on the loose in London, the great detective Sherlock Holmes (Robert Downey Jr.) and his faithful companion Dr. Watson (Jude Law) must use every ounce of their skill and wit to piece together a mystery and save not just London, but the entire world.
When I first saw the trailer for this film it looked like a terrible action film version of the classic Holmes stories. I did have some hope, I do like Guy Ritchie as a director, and with Downey as the lead I knew that I would at least get some good acting. I got better than I expected. Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law play incredibly well off each other. Their back and forth banter was fun and it was vintage Ritchie. One can always expect some flashy character interaction in a Ritchie film.
Now, this isn’t a page by page faithful adaptation of the Holmes created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. And don’t get me wrong with some of the things I am going to say, I love Sherlock Holmes, but I can see why the story was, for lack of a better term, modernized. Sherlock Holmes, the Doyle version, does not have a huge mass appeal for a modern audience. People need a little something to keep them interested. While this is a rather sad fact of modern cinema in many cases, this film still had some fun characters and a fairly good story to go with the little extra flash and bang that was added. While seeing Holmes beating guys up is something rather new, I think that they got the character down better than any Holmes I have seen on film before. And Watson, oh how I love not seeing a fat, bumbling, oaf as Watson. Jude Law plays a capable and competent Dr. Watson, much more like the books than some other films have shown. Now, could the film have been done with a little less of the 2009 spruce job? Sure, and it would have probably fared a bit better with the critics, but I think it would have fared worse at the box office. I don’t mind sacrificing a little bit to get what I want to see. In a perfect world there would be no give and take, and every person would have movies made specifically for them with their individual tastes in mind, but we live in an imperfect world. I can take an explosion or two if you give me a story that keeps me interested when things aren’t blowing up. While not the best film of the year, it was a better end to 2009 than some other film I saw recently, 4 Axes for this one.