Sherlock Holmes

If you are a fan of Basil Rathbone as a stuffier, cooler, calmer Sherlock Holmes, Robert Downey, Jr. might not exactly be your cup of tea. He is more of a Dr. House-like Sherlock Homes, which works just fine for me (and anyone who has no idea who Basil Rathbone is).

Downey stars as Sherlock Holmes - a British consulting detective well known for his brilliant mind and use of deductive reasoning to solve the toughest of cases. He's also a major gadfly, obnoxious and sloppy. After spending several years working together to solve many cases, Dr. Watson (Jude Law), has decided to break up the team and get married, but their last case is one that is coming back to haunt them.

Holmes and Watson arrested Lord Blackwood (Mark Strong) and Watson even pronounced him dead after the execution, but sightings of the evil politician have been increasing and causing great panic throughout London. The villainous practitioner of black magic promised Holmes he would not be able to stop three deaths and would go insane, so our hero has a vested interest in finding Lord Blackwell, or the imposter trying to invoke his name.

Is this really Lord Blackwell?

What is his goal?

Will Holmes be led astray by his old flame, Irene Adler (Rachel McAdams)?

Director Guy Ritchie and the writing team (Michael Robert Johnson, Anthony Peckham and Simon Kinberg) have reinvented Sherlock Holmes into a modern, flawed hero, but their true triumph in this movie is making Watson and Holmes one of the most interesting and entertaining bickering couples on the screen today.

The two are equals, as opposed to Watson being the sidekick and loyal assistant, which makes their silly disputes funnier and more fascinating. They have the great chemistry romantic comedy movie casting directors desperately seek (the people who made Did You Hear About The Morgans? probably wish they cast Downey and Law instead of Hugh Grant and Sarah Jessica Parker), and watching the two of them reacting to the same scene and information is a delight as Law as Watson shows you the fear the audience is feeling, while Downey shows you Holmes becoming more excited, which helps define both characters.

While the plot is a strange, twisty and not always well explained series of clues we don't get to solve (Holmes has a way of seeing the clue and explaining it all before the audience gets a chance to take a crack at it), Ritchie puts in a welcome, hilarious and surprisingly goofy tone to go along with the sleuthing and action sequences. It's a tasty mélange that could use a bit more sleuthing, but the audience has to respect the ingenious escapes made by Watson and Holmes, which show off each character's abilities, as well as thrilling the crowd with last minute, death defying feats.

Sadly, Ritchie and the writing team try a bit too hard to set up a sequel, which makes Sherlock Holmes a little too complicated for its own good, but I would still see this for the 100th time before I ever stepped foot into any theater playing Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel.

Sherlock Holmes is rated PG-13 for intense sequences of violence and action, some startling images and a scene of suggestive material.