Robert Downey Jr., left, and Jude Law star in Sherlock Holmes.
Sherlock Holmes
Directed by Guy Ritchie
With Robert Downey Jr., Jude Law, Rachel McAdams and Mark Strong
Since his introduction to the world in 1887 by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, fictional sleuth Sherlock Holmes has been much celebrated for his cleverness. He's a cerebral detecting machine, able to make it all look "elementary." But have his steely abs ever been given their proper due? Have we remarked enough on what a cutie-pie he is, especially when bantering with his sidekick, Dr. Watson?
No and no, but director Ritchie tries hard to correct our mistake with his populist Sherlock Holmes, which features Downey's six-pack in a starring role and Law as his partner more in bromance than in crime solving. In this movie, Holmes' ability to throw a right hook or dodge a flying fist matters just as much as his legendary brainpower. He fights bare-chested in the street, and when he gets into trouble, he talks through his moves in his head, computing the angle of the blow and the damage it will inflict before he actually strikes, which we see in slow motion.
This gives Ritchie an opportunity to show the action twice, a technique he employed to provide the backstory on shell games and heists in his previous films Snatch and Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels. But here it feels as if he's just trying to maximize the violence because it's so much more fun for him than the brainy stuff. Each of Holmes' crime-solving scenes slips by in an unmemorable instant. Frankly, the guys on CSI do more deductive reasoning.
The story begins with Watson about to leave Holmes for a girl, Mary Morstan (Kelly Reilly). Holmes is jealous, and their bickering is like something out of a lesser Judd Apatow movie. They'd be the Odd Couple if they were funnier and actually mismatched. (Law is too pretty to play Watson.) The crime involves a member of the House of Lords, Lord Blackwood (Strong), who has a penchant for the supernatural. He's caught by Holmes in the film's opening scenes in the middle of a satanic ritual and condemned to death by hanging but vows to return from the grave. Holmes' favorite dangerous lady, Irene Adler (McAdams), is also on hand. McAdams is saucy and fetching, but we don't believe for a minute that she'd really give Holmes a run for his money.
It isn't surprising that Ritchie, a director who essentially keeps making the same glib, lively movie over and over again (with the exception of 2002's Swept Away, which stands alone in defiant atrocity), would turn Holmes into an action hero. Nor is it a sin against literature; Doyle wasn't exactly Henry James. What is surprising is how bland the results are. The action sequences have an odd cheapness to them, and the central plot is one of those dreary take-over-the-world routines.
Even more surprising is that Downey, so quick-witted and verbally agile, doesn't manage to overcome all that. In theory, he seems such a good choice. Holmes was a late 19th century bad boy known for dipping into the cocaine, and Downey, reformed though he may be, is still our favorite bad boy. To imagine him in a different Holmes movie, one darker, smarter and less desperate to entertain, is to dream of what could have been.
Nine
Directed by Rob Marshall