His madness, obsession and genius are all well portrayed, and Ritchie’s direction matches it beautifully. Downey Jr brings some of his Tony Stark magic, but his take on Holmes is still distinct, not just because of his faultless English accent. It’s not pure Holmes then, but it’s not pure blockbuster either. The way to this climax offers a good mix of detecting, action and humour. There’s the equivalent of Poirot gathering all the suspects together to explain it to them, only in Ritchie’s blockbusterised version of a classic detective story this takes place atop a half-built Tower Bridge with the villain dangling precariously over his doom. Numerous murders and impossible escapes make up the narrative, slipping by almost unnoticed in the main plot but, come the climax, in true detective story fashion Holmes has an explanation for how every one was done. Perhaps this isn’t such an unfaithful Holmes after all.Īnd actually, the mysteries Holmes solves make some of the film’s most interesting bits. But he still has the brilliant mind, he still has a mystery to solve, and that love interest is Irene Adler, “the one that got away” from one of Conan Doyle’s earliest Holmes tales. You see, it’s true - Ritchie and co have turned grumpy old romance-free Holmes into a comedic action hero with a love interest. Indeed, I’m not even convinced they’re relevant in the first place. By this point you’re likely to have heard the arguments that Guy Ritchie’s blockbuster re-imagining of the Great Detective is actually based on all sorts of references and allusions in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s original works, so I won’t go over them again here. “Oh my God, what have they done to Sherlock Holmes?!” Etc etc. Guy Ritchie | 128 mins | Blu-ray | 12 / PG-13
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