Whether the new Sherlock Holmes movie is any good is a mystery that may be impossible for even the famous detective himself to solve. The truth is, director Guy Ritchie’s film is rather schizophrenic; at times fun and exciting and at others dreadfully tedious and boring. The plot or central mystery is all but incomprehensible, yet watching Robert Downey Jr. as the veteran sleuth solve said mystery is quite pleasurable indeed.
This new Sherlock Holmes is very much the intelligent master of deduction that he has always been but now he is also a straight up action hero, who does as much thinking with his fists as with his brilliant mind. It’s kind of like Sherlock Holmes mixed with Lethal Weapon with a dash of Indiana Jones thrown in for good measure. The fact is the film is more concerned with being a buddy movie than creating a satisfying mystery that the audience can participate in.
As always, Holmes is partnered with the more sophisticated Dr. Watson (Jude Law) but this time around they act more like Felix and Oscar from The Odd Couple or Riggs and Murtaugh from the Lethal Weapon series, constantly nit picking at one another while also having major bromantic feelings for one another. The pair have plenty of ongoing jokes between them, but as an audience member it’s a bit boring because you don’t know exactly what they are referring to.
As enjoyable as Downey and Law are to watch together, it’s also a bit tedious due to the fact that we never really get a sense of how their relationship started to begin with and that just may be Sherlock Holmes biggest flaw. I understand that the character is famous and has been around forever, but there is no origin story. If you are going to launch a film franchise, it would be nice to see how the characters start out. Perhaps the first installment of the series should’ve centered on the first case that Holmes and Watson worked on together. This film feels like you are watching Sherlock Holmes 3: The Case of the Resurrecting Man without ever having seen parts 1 and 2.
The central mystery as it were involves the villainess Lord Blackwood (Mark Strong) a murderer who is caught by Holmes in the very beginning of the film and sentenced to death. Shortly after, Blackwood apparently comes back to life, kills a few more people and the plot snowballs into him wanting to gain control over the whole world through the use of black magic or some such nonsense. When Holmes explains it all at the end, it makes sense, but at that point you won’t care. The fun of watching a great detective is to be able to play along with them, but there is no way to do that here. The only reason there is any mystery attached to this film at all is because the character is famous for solving them. I can’t help but feel that director Guy Ritchie was more interested in making a period piece version of Lethal Weapon than crafting an engaging plot.
There are some great things about the movie however. The action scenes are exciting and cleverly staged with an Indiana Jones flavor to them. One fight in particular between Holmes and a giant of a man is very reminiscent of the scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark where Indy is fighting the big bald German mechanic. One of my very favorite ideas the film employs is that Holmes is as thought out with his punches as he is with his deductions. During a fistfight, Holmes thinks out the series of punches he’s going to use on his opponent before actually throwing one. The film is electrifying when Holmes is fighting or sorting out clues, but everything else in between is rather bland and ineffective.
The best thing about this film is the inspired casting of Downey as Holmes and the effortless chemistry he shares with Law. I was excited to see Downey’s portrayal of Holmes and was not disappointed in the slightest. He is endlessly watchable, balancing precariously on the thin line between genius and insanity.
Downey has a supercharged intensity about him every time he is figuring out the nearly indecipherable clues in front of him. Unfortunately his thought out deductions aren’t used enough and the film relies more on the physicality of the character, which Downey also excels at. Jude Law is also very good as Watson but because the film never explains how he and Holmes became such good friends, he is nothing more than a sidekick, lacking any major stirrings of character development.
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