Sherlock Holmes review

I found something interesting last night as I was reading through my twitter messages. Apparently as of next summer with "Iron Man 2", Robert Downey Jr. will have had four films hit over one hundred million dollars and giving him probably the best actor come back of all time. Downey Jr. has been adding character after character to his rose gallery ever since he's returned and he can proudly add Sherlock Holmes to it now. Indeed it seems he was the man to play this part just as Jude Law was perfect for Dr. Watson. I will say that this film has three main things to not just like about it for me, but love about. The first two are them and the third is for all the big budget action moments and all the small seemingly uninteresting scenes, director Guy Ritchie STILL makes his style and tone present through it all. This is a dymanic looking and feeling movie. But not without it's draw backs.

On the scale of Robert Downey Jr. films most everyone goes ga-ga for "Iron Man". Hey it was a good movie. But I've never thought it as great as everyone else. Neither is this, but it's better. With the team of writers under Ritchie, the plot to the film is interesting and it's reveal is quite good, but it goes through so much complication that it sometimes feels that for all this guy's smarts, we should've come to this conclusion sooner. Furthermore Rachel McAdams and Mark Strong don't feel as strong character wise as Holmes and Watson and yes I know that they are supporting characters and what not, but one thing Ritchie is great at is handling a ton of characters throughout an overly complicated plot.

However even with those flaws there is so much to enjoy in "Sherlock Holmes" that they're never that big of an issue. The Holmes-Watson banter is great and their chemistry is perfect and Hans Zimmer delivers one of his best scores yet. I mean if nothing else, the score to this film is brillant to no end. McAdams is...welll... still as beautiful as ever and has some very fun moments in the film, but it never felt like she was given too many great lines or pieces in which we could enjoy her acting. Mark Strong has an equally annoying issue as the villian. Strong is an awesome actor and I feel like we're going to be seeing a lot of him in the future. As Lord Blackwood he's lines are very stationary villian and so his is general appearence. Although some of the stuff he does is pretty damn cool.

I think what's holding me back from loving the hell out of the movie is that it's a franchise starter and it's directed towards that sort of general action fans. Which isn't bad, but it means that a lot of it is pointed squarely at what they know people like. That's why the idea of a sequel gets me very excited because that's when you can take some risks and do things a bit differently. And have a feeling a sequel to this is gonna really knock it out of the part. So aside from my personal issues... "Sherlock Holmes" is very fun, smart and generally entertaining for everyone. It's got a great style and terrific actors at work within it. Definitly one of the better holiday films out.

"Sherlock Holmes" *** out of ****