Sherlock Holmes C+

In Theatres, 128 Minutes, Rated PG-13
There are a couple ways to reboot an established film series. One, ably illustrated by the Daniel Craig reboot of the 007 series, is to cut away the access and the layers of crap that have built up over the year and re-imagine the series while preserving its essence. So, the new Bond films are not only good films, but also good James Bond, even though the gadgets, never-ending supply of women, and constant double entendres have been eliminated. The second is to keep the access and the layers of crap—the name, the general premise—while cutting out the essence. The new Star Trek has done this about as well as can be imagined. Star Trek isn’t actually a good Star Trek movie at all, but it is a fun film. This second tact would appear to be the one taken by the (newly Madonna-less) Guy Ritchie in his new offering Sherlock Holmes. Unfortunately, not only is this movie not a very good Sherlock Holmes film, it’s not a very good film either. (Full Disclosure: I read The Complete Sherlock Holmes at some point in high school—both volumes. So, I’m a bit geeky on the detective and his fearless sidekick Watson).

The plot is occult-heavy mumbo-jumbo involving a serial-killing Lord Blackwood who has become an extremely powerful dark wizard (no, you have not stumbled into a Harry Potter review). He’s captured and hung, but not before issuing a warning to our fearless detective that many more would die and he would return. Resurrect he (apparently) does with an endgame taken straight out of 1960’s Bond- first capturing parliament then world domination.

Robert Downey Jr. is great fun as Sherlock and in some ways is closer to Holmes than usually portrayed. Although generally played as a killjoy egghead, the stories show an athletic man, fond of boxing, who enjoyed shooting his pistol in doors and was not against using a bit of cocaine in between cases. Watson, well played by Jude Law as a Sherlock Holmes-lite, could not be further from the source material, but is still a raucous goodtime. Their interaction is a bit flirty for my taste, but that’s the way they’re playing their guy-guy friendships in Hollywood these days (thank you, Judd). Unfortunately, the usually dependable Rachel McAdams is reduced to little more than window dressing and falls flat on some badly written dialogue she can’t seem to rise above. That’s too bad, because her role could and should have been a great deal more. The mid-1800’s London is a foggy, dank, ribauld mess of a town and would have stolen the show from a lesser actor than Downey.

This movie plays like a set-up for sequels. Downey and Law (and maybe McAdams) would be a lot of fun to see re-united. Let’s hope next time they get a better plot. C+