Sherlock Holmes

I am of the, potentially limited, school of thinking that Robert Downey Jr. is one of the two best actors of "our time". That being said, I watched this film and wasn't really in to it much, but watched it again and absolutely loved it. RDJ portrays Sherlock Holmes and does a very good job of it. The movie is witty, with some interesting theatrical tricks that haven't been explored in recent memory. Holmes is basically Horatio Caine (CSI Miami) meets James Bond, he is witty, can solve crime cases like they are going out of style, and he fights. The fight scenes are the theatrical trick that I can't recall being used before in that we get a slow motion, narrated (by Holmes himself) account of what is going to happen. Exactly where he is going to hit his opponent, as well as what impact that will have on him, and recovery time for that person. After the slow motion explanation of what is about to happen we get to see it in real time, and thank goodness for the slow-motion depiction of what happened because it is fast and mean. The movie itself has a great cast including Jude Law (Dr. John Watson), Rachel McAdams (Irene Adler), and Mark Strong (Lord Blackwell). The movie opens with a scene of Holmes in pursuit of the antagonist Lord Blackwell in the middle of an attempted murder, successfully catching him. The movie then flash forwards to Blackwell’s execution, from that point things get dicey for Holmes. Holmes is contacted by the love of his life Irene Adler to help her find a man. Adler has been enlisted by an unknown criminal to convince Holmes to do this. The movie feels a little abstract until the end when everything comes together. Holmes is a little too eccentric for even Watson. I thought that director Guy Ritchie did a great job of not making Watson seem like an after thought sidekick and he consistently trades blows with Holmes and keeps pace very nicely the entire time. Holmes however makes an ass of himself on a consistent basis, not really knowing what his place is in society. There are very cool sequences of explosions and large monolith style ships flying at you. It's hard to detail this movie too much because it is very much about what you see on screen and it is a mystery. This movie doesn't exist on any level other than a very shallow love story and the main mystery in the story so don't go in expecting layers of plot and underlying meanings to dialogue. It is however very cool to watch Holmes explains everything at the end of the movie and make it all come together. Also, interesting to watch Adler out smart Holmes on many different occasions, knowing that love often time clouds our thoughts. There are some very predictable things in the movie, but I think ultimately you are left guessing before Holmes unveils everything. I don't really know what my expectations of this movie were other than amazingness from RDJ, and he fulfilled that to some point. I don't think that it was worthy of his Globe for his role but it was good. You shouldn't expect RDJ from "The Soloist" or "A Scanner Darkly" but still great. Rachel McAdams time on screen is a bit limited for me, but she did a good job in her role. This movie is worth watching, maybe more than once so you can take everything in. The movie does a nice job of recreating industrial revolution England, from costumes, to smog, to buildings. My biggest problem with this movie is that we are left knowing that there will be another movie and it certainly didn't warrant a se/pre-qual for me. I fear that the studio has in mind that this movie will serve as a new "Pirates of the Caribbean" and I don’t think that Holmes will ever develop in to that, though I won't complain about more RDJ movies. Good viewing.
JP