Sherlock Holmes

Fans of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s mystery series of novels who blunder in not knowing it’s a Guy Ritchie film will it futile to reconcile Ritchie’s nonsensical tour of endless anachronisms. You’d need a special magnifying glass to identify any elements of  Doyle’s original literary source material that lends the title character his name. Snappy repartee between Robert Downey Jr.’s Sherlock Holmes and his irrelevant sidekick Watson (Jude Law) creates an illusion of character development even if no such thing exists. Outrageous action set pieces--complete with cheesy slow motion foreshadowing--jump from gratuitous martial arts fights to revved-up foot chases. What little mystery there is arises from Lord Blackwood (Mark Strong), a serial killer of women, whose court appointed execution by hanging kicks off the story. A practitioner of Black Magic, Blackwood outsmarts his warders and Sherlock Holmes with the aid of high ranking officials who are secret members of Blackwood’s New Order. Screenwriters Anthony Peckham ("Invictus"), Simon Kinberg ("Mr. and Mrs. Smith"), and newcomer Michael Robert Johnson conspire with Ritchie to dumb down Sherlock Holmes for a film franchise aimed at a modern youth that they must view as less intelligent than the generation Arthur Conan Doyle wrote for between the late 19th and early 20th century.

Rated PG-13. 128 mins. (Warner Brothers Pictures) (C) (Two Stars)