Bill Wine - Celebrity News Service Movie Critic

130 minutes

In theaters December 25, 2009

Rating: PG-13, Mystery-thriller

If Holmes is where your heart is, you're in for a treat: the game's afoot and so's the fun.

The royally entertaining Sherlock Holmes, the latest among several hundred films about the movie screen's most frequently portrayed character, is a modern twist on Arthur Conan Doyle's legendary detective that manages to respect and honor the source material and tradition even while taking dramatic liberties and updating the mythology with an eye on modern sensibilities and tastes.
Guy Ritchie (Snatch; Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels; Swept Away) does not come immediately to mind as a logical choice for the directorial assignment: his machismo-celebrating films have not exactly been what you would describe as cerebral.

That Ritchie intends to turn the ultimate consulting detective into not only a deductive-reasoning savant but also an action hero -- sort of a Better Holmes and Guardian -- at first glance seems predictable, wrongheaded, and, well, actionable. But son of a gun if the director doesn't make the mix work. That is, Sherlock Holmes isn't quite according to Doyle, but it's not purely according to Ritchie either.

Working from a clever screenplay celebrating the industrial revolution by Michael Robert Johnson, Anthony Peckham, and Simon Kinberg that makes Homes not only brainy but brawny -- a martial arts and fisticuffs practitioner -- Ritchie gives us more of the same and something radically different at the same time. We're taken down avenues of exploration about Holmes and Watson that we've rarely if ever traveled before, and yet the narrative's various conundrums, anything but elementary, are solved in a smartly cathartic way by the final fadeout.

Robert Downey Jr. portrays (and is perhaps the eightieth or so actor to do so) the brilliant Victorian Baker Street sleuth. His dear sidekick, Dr. Watson, played by Jude Law, is also given something of a makeover, here much more of a companion and equal than the usual exploits chronicler and bachelor assistant. He's much less buffoonish than the norm.

And, yes, this SH is also a Victorian bromance, a look at the relationship of these two confirmed bachelors to see just what might be confirmable (yes, ye seekers of homoerotic underpinning, it's there for the noticing).

In 1891, the imposingly villainous Lord Blackwood (Mark Strong), responsible for a string of murders and wanting very much to take over a fearful and intimidated England, is captured and prosecuted, but has a request before he is hanged. He asks for a visit from Sherlock Holmes. Holmes agrees, and at their meeting, Lord Blackwood issues a prophecy.

Later, when Blackwood returns from the grave and somehow reappears, a seeming demonstration of his mastery of black magic, Holmes and Watson and Scotlard Yard are up against it. And Holmes also takes on a case brought to him by fetching con artist Irene Adler, played by Racehl MacAdams, a previous love interest of his who may be more connected to the Blackwood imbroglio than she lets on.

Downey brings both charisma and wit to his Holmes, as well as the necessary physicality. Law is fine as well, and their unforced chemistry allows the fast-paced, lighthearted film's sense of humor to register early and often, never more so than in the scenes detailing Holmes' displeasure with the existence and intentions of Watson's fiance Mary (Kelly Reilly).

Richie assumes our familiarity with the Holmes legend, not a bad way to proceed. He and his staff do a splendid job re-creating nineteenth-century London; the several action scenes are splendidly staged, shot, and choreographed; and he plays fair. parading clues in front of us that Holmes picks up on before we do.

If there are a few too many incendiary explosions, a fight or two that goes on too long, and a narrative that winds down in Act Three instead of heating up, well, we can live with those limitations because the intriguing central mystery holds up, as does the Holmes-Watson bond and repartee.

Richie also sets up a sequel with unapologetic glee and, by the time we exit, has us looking forward to it: bring on Holmes' nemesis, Dr. Moriarty.

Sherlock Holmes is a stimulating and satisfying thriller that's neither Holmes sweet Holmes nor a long way from Holmes.
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