FIT AS A FIDDLE: Downey lost weight to play Sherlock Holmes

Rather, the project sounded fantastic — one of the best directors in the world today, Guy Ritchie, and Robert Downey Jr, one of the best actors in the world — were making a movie about the greatest detective ever in literary history.

Maybe it's a case of having too many good things at once, but the movie was almost a yawn.

The acting was excellent, the story was all right and the effects were good. However, for fans of Guy Ritchie, this does not look like any one of his movies. Having developed a style with Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels as well as Snatch, even the heavily Kabbalah-influenced Revolver, Ritchie's standards for movies have been very high, in the past.

Unfortunately, Sherlock Holmes falls in the category of the abysmal RocknRolla. It's not a bad movie. Not at all.
Downey and Jude Law were excellent as Holmes and Dr Watson respectively. The gay subtext was fabulously implied, and Holmes' mental acuity was demonstrated properly. Furthermore, this Sherlock Holmes movie is one that handles the original material with the utmost respect.

There were references for fans of Sherlock Holmes to find and feel giddy about. For instance, upon deducing facts from a man's watch, Watson quotes the exact conclusions made by Holmes in the first chapter of the Sherlock Holmes' novel Sign of Four. There's even a major character — Irene Adler, played by Rachel McAdams — who is the only person in literary history to have ever fooled Sherlock Holmes. Though appearing in only one Holmes story, she is reimagined as a recurring character who haunts Holmes throughout his career in the movie. Much like Catwoman to Batman.

The story is about Lord Blackwood (Mark Strong) who does some black magic rituals and is connected to a secret society. After killing five people in a ritual sacrifice, he is caught by Holmes and sent to prison, waiting to be hanged, where he promises Holmes to rise from the dead and change the course of history. Some echoes of Jack the Ripper there, who claims to have given birth to the 20th century in a letter to newspapers.

Anyway, despite the interesting set-up and talented people working on this movie, it's a bit too long, and some scenes looked unnecessary.

Certain things like Holmes' visualisation of beating people up, before doing exactly as he intended, was only used a couple of times. Holmes' semi-parasitic relationship with Watson also was not fully resolved, as if Ritchie got a memo telling him that sequels will be made in the middle of shooting, so no need to resolve the conflicts properly.

All in all, not a half-bad movie. Downey was excellent, Law was good and the rest were great. However, no awards here. The movie opens Dec 24.