I’ve been on something of a Sherlock Holmes binge recently. This started when I watched all three episodes of the BBC’s awesome Sherlock Holmes modernization and ended (for now) with the completion of this book. As of this typing, I’ve read everything from Holmes’ introduction in “A Study in Scarlet” to his temporary death in “The Final Solution” to the awesomeness that is “The Hound of the Baskervilles.” Sir Arthur Conan Doyle went on to write another novel and two short story collections with his famous creation after “Baskervilles,” but easily the most famous and recognizable Sherlock stories were written before that point.

With all of this in mind, I thought I’d revisit the 2009 Robert Downey Jr. film adaptation with a fresh new perspective. With your indulgence, I’d like to rewatch the movie and type down my thoughts on how it measures up to the source material. Let’s start by addressing the elephant in the room.

Continuity: This film was clearly made as if Holmes and Watson had already been adventuring for some length of time, implying that this movie must fit somewhere in the established timeline. There are several reasons why this thoroughly impossible, and primary among them is Conan Doyle himself.

Any discussion of the literature must address the fact that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wrote his Sherlock Holmes stories purely for the money. He read hundreds and hundreds of books in preparation for his historical and medical texts, but did absolutely zero research for Holmes. In fact, Holmes himself often derided the pithy and romanticized accounts of his adventures as written by Dr. Watson, clearly acting as a proxy for Conan Doyle to insult his own work (the opening to “The Adventure of the Copper Beeches” is perhaps the best example).

The Holmes stories are usually very self-contained. There are a few references to other works, but these callbacks are often contradictory or muddled by the fact that quite a few stories were published out of order. What’s more, Dr. Watson (the supposed actual author, remember) himself wrote the stories out of sequence. Watson complicates the timeline even further, since references to his marital status and medical practice can be very scattershot. Basically put, the timeline of the original text is already a mess because Conan Doyle never bothered to maintain it.

Getting back to the film, the movie itself frequently disregards the source text in ways that make it totally incompatible with canon. For example, the movie depicts Sherlock Holmes’ introduction to Watson’s fiancee Mary Morstan, something that happened in a totally different fashion during “The Sign of Four.” Even more perplexingly, “A Scandal in Bohemia” — the sole canon appearance of Irene Adler — is the only one of Conan Doyle’s works that’s implicitly treated by the film as backstory, but that story clearly states multiple times that Watson was already married by that point. Thus, the movie simultaneously treats “A Scandal in Bohemia” as both canon and non-canon at the same time. Gah.

Equally curious is when the movie shows us something perfectly identical to an event from the books. For example, the film copies (albeit abbreviates) a scene from “The Sign of Four” in which Holmes makes several observations about a pocketwatch. The film also shares a scene from “The Adventure of the Musgrave Ritual,” when Sherlock is so bored that he shoots the initials “VR” into his wall (it stands for “Victoria Regina,” by the way. That’s Latin for “Queen Victoria.”). I have no idea if the film is treating such moments as repeated incidents or first-time occurrences, though given Watson’s apparent familiarity with the observations about the pocketwatch, I’d guess the former.

The bottom line is that with this movie, as with the books, it’s definitely best not to ask too many questions about canon and continuity. It’s best to simply assume that this movie franchise exists in its own universe, after RDJ’s Holmes and Jude Law’s Watson have spent years bonding and working together on cases of their own. If nothing else, I’m glad that Guy Ritchie and company decided not to waste anyone’s time with an origin story. Those seem to be all the rage nowadays, but I digress.

Sherlock Holmes: Though RDJ and director Guy Ritchie do take some liberties with the character, their Sherlock is remarkably faithful to Conan Doyle’s creation in many ways.

For starters, there’s the brief exchange near the movie’s start, in which Watson reads letters from prospective clients to Holmes, who immediately begins to list off the solutions to their would-be mysteries. The text has a few such scenes, as Conan Doyle’s detective had such an extensive knowledge of criminal history that he could solve several new mysteries almost instantly by mentally comparing them to similar, previously reported cases (“A Case of Identity” is a good example of this). The text Sherlock was always looking for mysteries that had some new and unique aspect, something that RDJ made into a core part of his portrayal.

Far more importantly is how Holmes actually goes about solving his cases, and I’m pleased to say that the movie Holmes had it very close. In the text, Watson constantly remarked about Holmes’ strange gaze, his tented fingers and the way he curls up into his chair while thinking about a new and intriguing case, every bit of which is perfectly portrayed by RDJ. The movie Holmes’ inspection of the crime scene is also quite similar to his methods in the text, and Holmes’ disdainful relationship with the London police is perfectly adapted.

However, the movie Holmes does resort to lock-picking. I don’t recall Holmes ever doing in the source material, though I wouldn’t have been surprised if Conan Doyle had written such a scene. On a similar note, I’m positive that text Holmes never used a smoke-puffing doohickey as movie Holmes did (just what was that thing, anyway?). Moreover, Holmes relied on footprints and tobacco residue to provide clues on countless cases, to the point where I’m amazed that neither has become as synonymous with Holmes as his deerstalker cap (which was never mentioned in the text, BTW). Though the movie is indeed good enough to allude to footprint clues during the inspection of Blackwood’s grave, the allusion is far too brief for a faithful adaptation from the text. Hell, it isn’t even Sherlock who makes that reference, but Watson instead.

On a similar subject, the film makes inspired use of Sherlock’s great skill with disguises, something that text Sherlock uses many times to great effect (such as in “A Scandal in Bohemia” and “The Sign of Four”). The movie also utilizes text Sherlock’s penchant for looking to the lower class for assistance, by way of the movie’s filthy and drunken sailor on the Thames. Still, this is something that I’d like to see much more of in the sequel, possibly by way of “The Baker Street Irregulars,” Holmes’ paid crew of wastrel scouts.

The movie also provides us with several glimpses at what Sherlock does while attempting to pass time between cases. We see him experiment with flies, try to develop a prototype gun silencer, test a new anesthesia and ingest huge amounts of unknown drugs. In fact, the movie’s first scene in Holmes’ room contains heavy smoke in the background. This reminds me of a scene from “The Hound of the Baskervilles,” when Watson enters 221B Baker Street only to find that Holmes has smoked a full pound of shag tobacco in his ruminations, filling the room with comical amounts of smoke. I don’t recall any reference to alcohol abuse in the text, though he is shown to use snuff and cocaine (it was legal at the time, though frowned upon) quite frequently during his idle periods. As to the scientific experiments, I don’t think that the text Sherlock ever dabbled in biology or engineering, though he’s repeatedly shown to be a great chemistry enthusiast. Indeed, when Sherlock Holmes first made his grand debut in “A Study in Scarlet,” he was obsessing over a test-tube containing a blood test he had just invented.

Oh, and there’s also the fact that RDJ’s Holmes plays the violin. This really goes without saying, as it’s a trademark facet of the character. Yes, movie Holmes does have an unusual way of playing it, but I have no way of knowing how the text Holmes did it, so let’s move on.

As to Holmes’ relationship with Watson, there are a few liberties taken. In both versions, Watson is really the only friend that Holmes has. The difference is that the text Holmes doesn’t seem to mind that very much. Of course, he could never resist bringing Watson along on a case when the opportunity arose, but Holmes very seldom went out of his way to get Watson involved. Obviously, we never got to read one of Sherlock’s cases when Watson wasn’t around, but my impression is that Holmes was perfectly capable of getting on without his partner, so long as he had a case to work on. Being alone, after all, would be perfectly natural to him. Movie Holmes, on the other hand, seems insistent that Watson should continue to live in Baker Street and is constantly finding ways to persuade Watson into taking one more case. It’s clear that to some degree, Holmes needs Watson as his anchor to sanity. It’s an interesting interpretation, but I think this dependence makes him a weaker character.

On a similar note, movie Holmes is shown to be a socially incompetent man. Believe it or not, there is nothing in the text to support this. Though text Holmes’ deductions startle his acquaintances on countless occasions, he never went to the intrusive degree that movie Holmes did with Mary Morstan and he was always very polite about explaining the observations that led to his conclusions. Conan Doyle’s Holmes strove to be logical and unbiased in all things, particularly toward his interactions with others. The movie Holmes allows his jealous emotions to greatly affect his exchanges with Watson as well as his deductions regarding Morstan, and the text Holmes would surely be ashamed of this to no end. Granted, this may be a misinterpretation on the filmmakers’ part of text Holmes’ slightly arrogant nature, which comes through loud and clear in the movie.

Then, of course, there’s the action. Though the text often mentions Holmes’ skill in boxing and fencing, he’s rarely called upon to do either in the books. Text Holmes is much more a man of thought and his stories usually climax with a big reveal, as opposed to a big fight scene. There are exceptions, however, such as the thrilling boat chase in “The Sign of Four,” the confrontation with bank robbers in “The Red-Headed League” and of course, the showdown with the Baskerville Hound. In this case, the most relevant scene is probably from “The Naval Treaty.”

‘He flew at me with his knife,’ [said Holmes] ‘and I had to grass* him twice, and got a cut over the knuckles, before I had the upper hand of him.’

*[as in “Knock him down to the…”]

That’s it, folks. To my knowledge, that’s the only time we see Sherlock in fisticuffs, presented in its entirety. It’s not much, but it gave Guy Ritchie the foundation to make Sherlock’s boxing prowess more prominent. Fortunately, Ritchie had the brilliant idea of marrying Sherlock’s mental abilities to his physical strength. Though we never see how Conan Doyle’s Sherlock thinks during a fight (how could we, when it’s Watson doing the narration?), there’s not a doubt in my mind that the text Sherlock would use his skills of observation and deduction to find his opponent’s weaknesses and do it every bit as capably as RDJ does in the movie. Brilliant.

It’s also worth noting that RDJ is quite frequently seen with a hunting crop, particularly in some of the fight scenes. A hunting crop was indeed the text Sherlock’s weapon of choice, as seen in “The Red-Headed League” and “A Case of Identity.”

Basically put, all of these differences to the source material could be summed up in three words: “Make Sherlock fun.” Yes, the text Sherlock was much less emotional, less judgmental and less a man of action, but that had been his portrayal for decades and it had grown stale. As part of revitalizing the character, Guy Ritchie gave Holmes some fighting skills and weapons with a long-forgotten basis in the text, implementing them with great skill and style. Holmes was also made more emotional and much more of a smartass, but that gave RDJ the necessary room to leave his mark on the character and ensure that he’d be entertaining to watch. His relationship with Watson is more clingy now, but that allows for some great chemistry between the characters. It also acts as a sort of helping hand from Sherlock, helping to raise Watson up from his former position as a mere sidekick. And all of this was done without compromising the intelligence or the methods that made Sherlock Holmes such a legendary detective.

Dr. John Watson: Jude Law’s portrayal of Dr. Watson takes a lot of liberties with the character, though it’s certainly an improvement over what had become the character’s reputation prior to this film. To start with, Conan Doyle’s Dr. Watson was not an elderly and rotund bumbler, but a physically fit man of middle age. He’d have to be the latter, because the former would assuredly have never survived some of the adventures of the text. Additionally, both the movie and the text take great pains to portray Watson as a military man with an educated medical mind. Sure, he may not be as intelligent as Sherlock Holmes, but that doesn’t make him an idiot; that just makes him human.

Oddly, the movie strongly hints that Watson has (or is recovering from) a gambling problem. Wikipedia tells me that this was hinted at in “The Adventure of the Dancing Men,” which was published post-Baskerville, but I don’t recall anything in the pre-Baskerville text that would suggest a gambling addiction for Watson. On a similar note, the movie Watson has a dog that serves as a guinea pig for Holmes’ experiments and for our comedy relief. Though Watson does mention that he has a bull-pup in “A Study in Scarlet,” the dog is never named, nor seen or heard of in the text after this point.

By far the most relevant change to Watson is in his relationship with Holmes. In the movie, Watson is desperate to get away from Holmes and get on with his own life. He’s drawn to Holmes’ cases like a moth to flame and he totally resents it. This stands entirely counter to the text Watson, who loved nothing more than to follow Holmes on his cases and to write about them afterward. The text Watson would spend days out of London with Holmes, getting neighboring doctors to tend to his medical practice in the meantime. He would gladly and willingly obey any of Holmes’ instructions to the letter, even if it meant breaking the law. I simply can’t imagine Jude Law’s Watson doing either of these things. At the very least, he’d be quite unhappy about it.

Additionally, the movie Watson often complains about Holmes’ living habits, something that I don’t recall the text Watson ever doing. In fact, Conan Doyle’s Watson was paradoxically a military doctor who was rather untidy in his lifestyle (see: The opening paragraph of “The Musgrave Ritual”).

Another crucial change was made to Watson for the action scenes. When Watson was armed (as he frequently was), it was invariably with his old army revolver. Though movie Watson is indeed armed with a revolver at several times (most notably during the prologue) he also defends himself with a special cane that conceals a blade. So far as I know, the text Watson never had any such weapon.

(Side note: When Hans Zimmer was crafting his superlative Oscar-nominated score, he gave Watson a very unusual theme: Silence. “The whole idea is that it’s these two friends,” said Zimmer. “In other words, if it’s Watson by himself the theme is more the lack of a theme and the void it creates.” So the next time you watch this movie, pay close attention to the scenes that revolve around Watson in some way and note the deafening lack of score.)

Watson had definitely gone through several alterations in the transition to this movie, but that’s mostly because he had quite an uphill climb to make. He’s really sort of a non-entity in the text, serving first and foremost as Sherlock’s eager tagalong. Sure, there’s ample mention of his military record and his medical practice is frequently referenced, but though his expertise is utilized on quite a few occasions, none are especially vital to the plot of any particular Sherlock story. In fact, with the sole and debatable exception of “The Sign of Four” — and maybe “A Scandal in Bohemia” — Watson never affects the plot in any indispensable way until “Hound of the Baskervilles.” Watson’s subsequent depiction outside of canon damaged the character still further, making him even more useless so that Sherlock might look better.

Fortunately, Ritchie apparently had the presence of mind to realize that Sherlock doesn’t need a bumbling lackey to make himself look good. He also found quite a few ways to inextricably tie Watson to the plot, as well as scenes that employ his intellect to help drive Sherlock’s investigation forward. Add in the fighting skill that readers always knew the text Watson had — though seldom seemed to use — and you have a man worthy to be called Sherlock Holmes’ partner.

Lord Blackwood: Our villain is a peculiarity in quite a few ways. There’s obviously the fact that Blackwood has no counterpart in the source material (I understand that he was loosely based on the real-life historical figure Aleister Crowley, which is really cool), but there’s also the fact that he doesn’t fit the usual Sherlock Holmes format. All of the Holmes stories — save only for “A Scandal in Bohemia” and possibly “The Adventure of the Speckled Band”– are whodunits, but this story is instead a “howdunit.” Our mystery is not in who the criminal is, but in how and why he carries out his crimes. Fortunately, though this style of mystery is quite unusual in the Sherlock Holmes literature, Ritchie and company manage to give Holmes a mystery and a villain worthy of his intellect. Additionally, one of Blackwood’s methods turns out to be a huge technological innovation that we take for granted today, which I personally thought was a really neat touch.

Supernatural crimes are a great rarity in the Sherlock Holmes ouvre. Though text Holmes did confront a shadowy underground cabal when he briefly took on the Ku Klux Klan (no, seriously: Sherlock Holmes vs. the KKK. It was called “The Five Orange Pips” and it wasn’t nearly as cool as you might think), most of his mysteries are actually quite mundane, usually revolving around one or more persons disappearing or acting strangely. To my knowledge, the only other exception is “The Hound of the Baskervilles,” which — just like the movie — was founded on a supernatural premise that turned out to be a perfectly earthly illusion.

I honestly think that this was the best possible route for the film to take, since it makes for much better cinema than, say, “The ‘Gloria Scott.'” However, the method to the mystery is contrived as all hell, particularly in regard to the “man/ox/eagle/lion” bullshit. Take the “eagle” death, for example: What if the American ambassador had decided to play along with Blackwood’s scheme? What if one of the other council members had taken his side? What if the fake bullet had malfunctioned, if it wasn’t loaded or if he had decided to carry another gun entirely? What if the flammable solution had washed off in the rain? Why didn’t it wash off in the rain? It just goes on and on.

Of course, what really makes the character and his plot work is Mark Strong. Before this movie’s release, Strong was known primarily as a character actor with a tremendous amount of talent. To my knowledge, Blackwood was his first A-list role as well as his first above-the-title credit and he knocked it out of the park. His career’s really taking off now (he’s set to play Sinestro in the upcoming Green Lantern movies) and I can’t wait to see what more he does.

As to Blackwood himself, he was a very intelligent man who matched wits with Sherlock Holmes for global stakes, portrayed by an amazing actor. Blackwood was exactly the villain that this movie needed, no more and no less.

Irene Adler: Irene Adler is like the Boba Fett of the Sherlock Holmes series. She only appears for one story in the entire Holmes canon, and only as a supporting character, yet she left such a strong impression that she’s appeared in countless spin-offs and adaptations since. It’s anyone’s guess why, but I’d assume that it has something to do with the fact that she’s easily the strongest female character in Sherlock Holmes’ collected stories. That and she’s one of a very select few who were not only able to outsmart the detective, but able to slip away from right under his nose.

A brief summary of “A Scandal in Bohemia”: Irene Adler was an American prima donna contralto in a prestigious opera company. She had come to such fame and fortune with her voice and her acting abilities that she was able to retire to London in her late twenties. At some point afterward, she had gotten into a liaison with Bohemian royalty. A few years later, when said royalty was about to get married, Adler threatened to make the affair public and force the prince’s hand into marriage. Holmes was hired to retrieve Adler’s proof of the affair, only to find that Adler had recently fallen in love with someone else, entering into a rushed marriage with a lawyer named Godfrey Norton (Holmes himself, disguised as a beggar, was the best man). Adler eventually figured out Holmes’ game, but only after he had tricked her into revealing the location of her scandalous photo. Adler took the picture and ran, leaving behind the promise that she was deeply in love with Norton and was only keeping the affair’s proof for her own protection. She also left behind a portrait of herself, which Holmes kept as a souvenir.

Absolutely none of this plays any part in the movie. Her New Jersey birthplace is alluded to (Rachel McAdams herself is actually Canadian, BTW) and we see what appears to be the portrait she left, but that’s it. Movie Adler has apparently divorced Norton and she never sings in the film, meaning that the movie has discarded two of the most central points to her character in the text. Instead, the movie shows Adler to be a career criminal, a gold digger and a woman who’s perfectly capable of defending herself. None of this is ever so much as hinted at in the text. The only overlap is in Adler’s intelligence, as she manages not only to evade Holmes as she did in the text, but also to trick him into drinking spiked wine. In fact, Jude Law’s Watson remarks that Adler has previously outsmarted Holmes twice, as opposed to the singular occasion in “Scandal.”

On a completely unrelated note, when Irene Adler reads from her file, she mentions the theft of naval documents that led to a prime minister’s resignation. This is obviously a reference to “The Naval Treaty,” though the nationalities have been changed, the documents were returned at the end of that story and no one resigned over it. Also, Adler was obviously absent from the proceedings.

In the same scene, Adler mentions “The Grand Hotel” and talks about her “old room” with Sherlock. I can’t begin to imagine what that was about, considering that Adler stayed in Briony Lodge during “A Scandal in Bohemia.” Just another bit of the movie franchise’s own unique backstory, I suppose.

Irene Adler is definitely the movie’s weak link. Mostly, this is due to the fact that Rachel McAdams is simply too young for the role and she’s too inexperienced to hold the screen against RDJ in his prime. What’s more, movie Adler had precious little source material to draw from and there’s a lot of visible indecision regarding exactly how much of it would be used to define her character. I get the impression that Ritchie and McAdams were trying to make a character with her own skills and history who was Irene Adler in name only. The attempt was slightly mishandled, though I hope that more progress will be made in the sequel. It’s also possible that McAdams may have grown into her character by that point. Time will tell.

Prof. Moriarty: Much like our female lead, Professor James Moriarty is a Sherlock Holmes character who’s become way more prominent in apocrypha than he ever was in canon. Though Moriarty is known to be a criminal mastermind with intelligence equal to or greater than that of Sherlock Holmes, pretty much everything that we know about him is limited to “The Final Problem.” That story marks his only appearance in canon, as Conan Doyle made him solely to provide a worthy death for Sherlock Holmes.

In fact, the term “appearance” is misleading, as Moriarty and Dr. Watson never personally met or saw each other. The most that Watson ever sees of him is a tall man with an outstretched arm on a train platform (it could’ve been anyone, really). What’s more, the infamous confrontation at Reichenbach Falls happens entirely out-of-scene, with Watson arriving only after Sherlock’s apparent death. In fact, it might be argued that Moriarty was never real and that his existence was merely a paranoid delusion or an elaborate ruse that Sherlock set up so he might disappear for a while.

(Side note: Moriarty does play a prominent role in “The Valley of Fear,” an apparent retcon to explain how Holmes first learned of his adversary. However, the Wikipedia synopsis [I haven’t read the novel] makes it sound like Moriarty’s involvement is quite ambiguous. Thus, the “paranoid delusion” hypothesis remains possible.)

But assuming that Moriarty really existed in the text, what do we know about him? Well, he was a math prodigy, earning the mathematical chair at a small university in London before his “hereditary tendencies” toward crime compelled him to resign. From that point on, he became something like a criminal-for-hire: “Is there a crime to be done, a paper to be abstracted… a house to be rifled, a man to be removed — the word is passed to the professor, the matter is organized and carried out.” This stands in strong contrast with the movie Moriarty, who claims to be working entirely toward his own plan and makes no mention of any client or commission.

Additionally, text Moriarty’s network is so vast and convoluted that the master himself is never in danger of getting caught or implicated, even if any particular operation is compromised. Thus, I can’t help but wonder why movie Moriarty personally meets twice with his employee — Irene Adler — in broad daylight, or why he himself commits theft and murder at the end of the film. You’d think that he would have intermediaries for that sort of thing.

I should also note that the Travis Bickle-style revolver is entirely Guy Ritchie’s creation. According to Wikipedia (this was apparently mentioned in “The Valley of Fear,”) the text Moriarty favored a rather unique weapon called an “air rifle.” This was a sniping rifle that fired revolver bullets with very little noise, cleverly hidden in a cane. In the film’s defense, I suppose that shoving a cane in Holmes’ face wouldn’t have had quite the same visual punch and there’s no denying that the sliding concealed pistol is really cool.

It’s already clear that we’re dealing with a character who’s Moriarty in name only. This is a villain with absolutely no basis in the text, though the name of “Moriarty” has become so notorious and synonymous with Sherlock’s bane that a Holmes archnemesis by any other name simply wouldn’t be right. Still, if any of you out there are interested in seeing a sinister Moriarty perfectly adapted to the screen, I refer you to the aforementioned BBC miniseries.

As to the Guy Ritchie incarnation, we’ll surely learn more about him in the sequel. Though it was never disclosed who voiced Moriarty in this movie, his actor in the sequel is confirmed to be an accomplished character actor named Jared Harris. Though I’m unfamiliar with his work on Mad Men, I did see his work on Fringe. In the latter series, Harris played a secretive and creepy mad scientist with considerable authority in a secret underground terrorist organization. Suffice to say that I have extremely high expectations for his depiction of Moriarty.

Miscellaneous Cast: There are two other characters in this film that I’d like to address: Mary Morstan and Inspector Lestrade.

Upon her introduction, Mary Morstan is described as “a blonde young lady, small, dainty, well gloved, and dressed in the most perfect taste… Her face had neither regularity of feature nor beauty of complexion, but her expression was sweet and amiable, and her large blue eyes were singularly spiritual and sympathetic… [Watson had] never looked upon a face which gave a clearer promise of a refined and sensitive nature.” In my humble opinion, that description perfectly suits Kelly Reilly in the role, even if she does appear to be rather tall. She perfectly treads that difficult line of being beautiful without being Hollywood-level gorgeous, which seems to be right where text Morstan is as well. The only notable difference is that the text Morstan is far more forgiving of Holmes and Watson’s partnership with him than the movie Morstan ever was. Presumably, this is due to the difference in how they all met, as the Morstan of the film had assuredly never availed herself of Holmes’ services.

As to Inspector Lestrade, the text only ever describes him in connection with rodents (“ferret-like,” “rat-faced,” etc.). As such, though I’d like to say that Eddie Marsan perfectly looks the role, I’m not sure if that would be a compliment. Nevertheless, the Inspector Lestrade of the text was a pompous git who (to paraphrase Holmes himself) constantly twisted facts to suit his theories. Holmes treated Lestrade with a strange and witty mixture of amusement and antipathy, while Lestrade fancied himself an intellectual equal to Holmes, even as he asked for the detective’s help. Basically put, the movie got Lestrade and his interplay with Holmes perfect.

London: The production design got an Oscar nod and rightly so. The city of London was practically its own character in the books, with great amounts of imagery used to describe its locations, streets, people and conveyances. Any adaptation of Sherlock Holmes would demand a living, breathing, squalid and painstakingly detailed depiction of London and that’s exactly what Guy Ritchie delivered. In fact, I’d say that Ritchie went beyond the call of duty by integrating such landmarks as the Palace of Westminster and the Tower Bridge into the narrative.

However, I’m of the opinion that the bridge made a bad scene for the climactic showdown. There were way too many conveniently placed platforms, as well as ropes and chains that sprung out at random. It all smelled of lazy writing and bad choreography. Similarly, the fight before that took place in a sewer, which seems like a rather uninventive place to hold a big climactic fight. It’s bad enough that there has to be a sewer level in every video game released nowadays, so do we really need sewer levels in our movies as well?

Conclusion: Sherlock Holmes set out to make its title character fresh again by tapping into aspects of the text that had become more obscure and putting a stylish new spin on them. By and large, it succeeded. The movie was exciting in several places, Holmes and Watson were perfectly cast, the action was solid and the detective work was a lot of fun to watch. Unfortunately, Rachel McAdams was miscast, there are a lot of third-act problems and the movie doesn’t end so much as beg for a sequel.

Luckily, there is a sequel currently shooting and set for a release in December of 2011. Noomi Rapace is joining the cast as a new gypsy character, alongside Stephen Fry as Sherlock’s brother Mycroft and the aforementioned Jared Harris. Just from that casting, this movie looks to be a huge step up and I can’t wait to see more of it. Stay tuned.

Thanks for reading!