No Shit Sherlock

It was inevitable that the current trend of re-imagining and remaking every movie and TV show ever made, should eventually reach Sherlock Holmes. The question is, why did it take so long? The books and short stories written over a century ago by Arthur Conan Doyle have been recreated for the screen hundreds of times, but in the last 20 years or so, not so much. The most famous portrayal of Holmes was by Basil Rathbone (with Nigel Bruce as Watson) in 14 films in the 1940's. My personal favorite is not a real Sherlock Holmes movie. It is They Might Be Giants, the story of a troubled man (George C. Scott) in modern (c. 1970) New York City who believes that he is actually Sherlock Holmes, and his psychiatrist, Dr. Mildred Watson (Joanne Woodward). Put it on your Netflix list. There hasn't been a major motion picture version of Sherlock Holmes for about twenty years. Until now.

The new Sherlock Holmes has been promoted and discussed endlessly. The discussion has been mostly about the fidelity of this re-imagining. In the film, Holmes (Robert Downey Jr.) and Watson (Jude Law) are basically action heroes in an action film. Most of the plot concerns a serial killer (Mark Strong) who is Jack the Ripper with a little voodoo added in, who apparently returns from the grave to resume his life of crime. Also in the mix is Inspector

Lestrade (Eddie Marsan) of the Yard, Watson's fiancee (Kelly Reilly) and Holmes competitor and love interest, Irene Adler (Rachel McAdams). As is normal for recent remakes of old books and comics, the filmmakers have included a hodgepodge of stuff from many actual Sherlock Holmes stories into the screenplay for the new film. Irene Adler appears in the books as Holmes' love interest ,and Watson does get engaged, married and eventually widowed. And Inspector Lestrade of Scotland Yard appears in many Holmes stories. Robert Downey Jr.'s character is, in fact, very close to the original in many ways. Holmes was an eccentric. His manner of dress and his wildly untidy flat at 221B Baker Street are straight out of the books. He and Watson carried pistols, and Holmes had trained as a boxer and regularly dispatches bad guys. If anything, I think Watson is changed more from the original, from the stuffy, recorder of events into Robin to Downey's Batman.

Sherlock Holmes was directed by Guy Ritchie, who besides having been married and divorced from Madonna, specializes in such fast-talking, fast-action films as Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, Snatch and RocknRolla. There are some similarities of style between Sherlock Holmes and these earlier films. The main one is non-stop action. In movies like Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, this made for a very entertaining movie, but in Sherlock Holmes, I found it a bit disappointing. It's not that I didn't like the action, it's just that these scenes make up almost the whole movie, and displaced what I was looking for which is some deduction. I was quite looking forward to a whole lot of scenes of Holmes deducing people's lives from one tiny bit of cigar ash, but sadly this is mostly missing from the film. It's too bad because, otherwise, it's a nice movie. It looks great and the casting of Jude Law and Robert Downey Jr. as the iconic leads works well. And I just love, love, love, Robert Downey Jr. The rest of the cast has little to do and mostly makes no impact, including Mark Strong (RocknRolla) as the one-dimensional villain, Eddie Marsan (V for Vendetta) as the one-dimensional Inspector, and Kelly Reilly (Pride & Prejudice) as the one-dimensional fiancee. Only Rachel McAdams (State of Play, The Family Stone), as the mysterious female "Holmes," breaks out of the pack, and holds her own with Downey Jr. and Law. I hope she will be back for the sequel.

I know you are asking yourself the question, "Where is Professor Moriarity?" Well, in this respect at least, the makers of Sherlock Holmes are taking the long view. Moriarity does appear near the end of the film, albeit cloaked in darkness, revealing to the viewers that he has been pulling the strings all along and presaging the inevitable sequel. There are rumors that none other but Brad Pitt will be playing Professor Moriarty in the next movie planned for 2011. Anyway, even without much Moriarity, this is an enjoyable bit of fluff which makes it a perfect holiday movie.