...Sherlock Holmes this afternoon. If Robert Downey, Jr., wasn't someone whom I would envision as Holmes in a movie, neither was he totally improbable in the role. Jude Law gave a fine performance as Watson, although he takes a far more active role in the movie than Conan Doyle ever envisioned for him, I would imagine.
Contrary to some reviewers' complaints, Downey-as-Holmes has several of Holmes' mannerisms: steepling his fingertips together when listening to a case being outlined, meditating with pipe in mouth ("It is quite a three-pipe problem!" he says in the original stories) when working out details in his mind, and he uses several of the lines of dialog that Conan Doyle wrote in the stories.
Director Guy Ritchie plays fair with the revelation of clues, also; when Holmes observes a room, his eyes light on various objects, and you see quick glimpses of his thought processes at work, but it is up to the movie viewer to join the visual clues into the narrative exposition that Holmes explains at the denouement of the film.
Other details in the movie are accurate to Conan Doyle, also, such as the bulldog that is mentioned only in A Study In Scarlet and never again thereafter.
There are a lot of great fistfighting scenes in the movie, with Watson as well as Holmes showing themselves to be no beginners at streetfighting, and Watson in particular quite skilled at using a walking stick in a martial fashion, both as a stick and as a sword cane. The plot is simpler than many reviewers have said, though I'll not detail it here so as to not spoil the movie for those who haven't seen it. Needless to say it looks as if it will be successful enough to spawn a sequel should the cast and director all wish to do one.
Quite enjoyable as a movie!
Sara and I also saw a few trailers we liked, especially The Wolf-Man, a remake of the 30's Universal film with Benicio Del Toro taking the lead role originally done by Lon Chaney, Jr. That one will be coming out in about a month.
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I enjoyed the movie. I thought the portrayal of Holmes was reasonably true to the book. I liked they should the Victorian age as vibrant and expanding. The story though was "sherlock holmes meets the divinci code"
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