Sherlock Holmes (2009) - 4/5

Alright, I'll admit it. Guy Ritchie has to be one of my favorite modern directors. When he touches something, there is a good chance I'll love it (I even dug "Revolver" for God's sake) and having him take on reinventing one of the most recognizable characters in fictional history even seemed daunting to me. Alas though, my worries were alleviated after leaving the theater. Guy Ritchie still kept the film true to its basics (he is the worlds smartest detective you know) yet added enough action flair to please modern audiences and kept the comedic value swift and charismatic. Perhaps not the best film of the year, but damn entertaining and fun.

It's really hard not to fall in love with Robert Downey Jr and Jude Law in this film. Their chemistry on screen makes this movie tick right down to the core. Just watching them together on screen was more fun than the choreography, the clever dialogue, or the fairly over complex story all put together. They just oozed charm and hilarity all over the screen.

Of course, what's a "Sherlock Holmes" tale without some sort of borderline outrageous tale. This one is a whopper too. Mark Strong (as our resident super creepy villain Lord Blackwood) conjures up a plan to use magic to strike fear into the population and overthrow the government thusly leading to...you guessed it...world domination. It's up to our eclectic hero, Holmes and his, preoccupied with his new lady, sidekick Watson to find out what Lord Blackwood is truly about and whether or not the black magic he uses is truly not logical.

The story at times is almost too complex for its own good and to keep the pacing up for the film, it seemed as though they had to skip a lot of Holmes' deducing of the facts. I kind of wished they would have kept the narrating thought process of Holmes (they do it a few times in the opening sequence and a bit later) more in the film, but this is modern audiences and we want more than that. So to keep pacing up, the story suffers a bit and the ending revelation seems to pop up a bit quicker than I would have assumed. Not that it didn't pull away from the fun and awesome time I had at the theater, but it was more or less a picky criticism.

Other than that though, it's hard for me to be too critical of "Sherlock Holmes". Be prepared though for super thick accents (when does Guy Ritchie not have those?) super quick jokes and dry humor, and enjoy the time you have with these blokes as it will fly by and the movie is over quicker than you can blink.

Additional Note: This film does reek as the opening of a franchise. Which of course, I more than approve of. 

Written By Matt Reifschneider