Sherlock Holmes

I am not a Sherlock Holmes scholar.

I KNOW of him, in the sense that I know that he's the fictional father of forensic science, was often portrayed with a deerstalker hat, pipe, and cape, and had a well meaning if bumbling sidekick known as Watson. He was also very British, a fact that looms large in this new interpretation of Holmes.

Holmes skill, and by proxy his creator Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, orbited around the fundamentals of British society, something I think we Americans don't always appreciate. The notion that you can tell something about a man by the way he dresses, by the stains on his shirt, by the way he walks, by the inclination of his head or how he swings his arms, all feed into the insidious belief that one does not rise above one's class. This is part of Holmes' brilliance in penetrating disguises and deceptions – the bad guys can pretend to be someone else, but their true nature gives them away.

Viewed through this lens, this latest incarnation of Sherlock Holmes (played with beleaguered smugness by Robert Downey Jr.) gives us glimpses of the society that helped shape him. We understand that Holmes can spot a tobacco stain, chalk dust, or a shoe scuff – but not the reasons that such details are intuitively obvious to a man of Holmes' intellect and perception. He's paying attention to things that the society of his time took for granted.

The plot revolves around Lord Blackwood (Mark Strong), a cultist capable of manipulating a secret society into believing that he can survive even the hangman's noose. The name is reminiscent of Algernon Blackwood, the author of the horror classic, The Wendigo, and a member of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. The Golden Dawn manifests in the film as "The Temple of the Four Orders." Blackwood's sinister influence is perhaps more appropriately attributed to Aleister Crowley. The secret society is significant, because it blurs the social boundaries, with members from across high society (even Americans!). This is simply intolerable, and we look to Holmes to set the social order straight once more.

Guy Ritchie is no fool – he knew that to make Holmes palatable to Americans the Holmes myth would need to be punched up (literally). So all the vices, all the physical prowess, and all the eccentricities of Holmes are in full display here – his lack of tidiness, his familiarity with the marital art bartitsu, and his obsession with Irene Adler. There is evidence that all these elements existed in the Holmes canon. They were of course revealed gradually, whereas the film throws them all into the pot at once. Whether or not this is a good thing depends on your appreciation for pulp.

The pulp film style – non-stop action interspersed with little explanation – is in full force. Victorian England isn't explained; it's simply on display in all its gritty glory. The extras are really ugly, brutish caricatures while the leads are almost luminescent in their cleanliness and pearly-white teeth. Adler being the prime example (played by the delicious Rachel McAdams).

McAdams seems woefully out of her depth. While her character is supposedly so wily as to be the only woman to give Holmes a run for his money, it's established very early that Holmes has the upper hand. In fact, their relationship comes off as something of a schoolboy crush – understandable, but not quite a worthy foil for Holmes.

Downey is his usually disheveled, recovering-addict self. It's clear Downey's become the new go-to man for playing characters that closely parallel his own real-life troubles, and the actor inhabits them ably. Maybe a little too much so – the infernal "Downey mumble" is in full effect here—sometimes I can't make out a single word of what he was saying.

The real standout is Jude Law as Watson. Law's refined yet frustrated Watson grounds Holmes, as he should. He also upstages Downey with his easy British eloquence. This version of Watson is no fool but a worthy equal, establishing a buddy-cop vibe to the film.

Ritchie's cinematography is practically a character unto itself. Whether he's showing Holmes' calculating his attacks in slow motion or zooming through carriage and across cobblestones, he manages to encompass all of Victorian England with a sweep of the camera. It's a testament to Ritchie's skill that the film doesn't drag despite its long running time.

Loud, violent, fast-paced, and a little too blasé in its forensic explanations, Sherlock Holmes is nevertheless entertaining enough to make it worth seeing for fans who know of Holmes by reputation only.