Sherlock Holmes (2009)

Sherlock Holmes is a 2009 British-American action mystery film based on the character of the same name created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The film was directed by Guy Ritchie and produced by Joel Silver, Lionel Wigram, Susan Downey and Dan Lin. The screenplay by Michael Robert Johnson, Anthony Peckham and Simon Kinberg was developed from a story by Lionel Wigram and Michael Robert Johnson. Robert Downey, Jr. and Jude Law portray Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John Watson respectively. In the film, Holmes and his companion Watson, with aid from former adversary Irene Adler, investigate a series of murders connected to occult rituals. Mark Strong plays the villain Lord Blackwood, who has somehow returned after his execution with a plot to take over the world using an arsenal of dark arts and new technologies.

The film went on general release in the United States on 25 December 2009, and on 26 December 2009 in the UK, Ireland, and the Pacific, and was met with a largely positive critical reaction. The film was nominated for two Academy Awards, Best Original Score and Best Art Direction, which it lost to Up and Avatar, respectively.
A sequel, Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, was released on 16 December 2011.

The Plot

In 1891, London detective Sherlock Holmes (Robert Downey, Jr.) and his partner and flatmate Dr. John Watson (Jude Law) race to prevent the ritual murder of a woman by Lord Blackwood (Mark Strong), who has killed five other young women similarly. They stop the murder before Inspector Lestrade (Eddie Marsan) and the police arrive to arrest Blackwood.

Three months later, Holmes' eccentric behavior again annoys Watson. While he enjoys their adventures together, Watson looks forward to marrying Mary Morstan (Kelly Reilly) and leaving 221B Baker Street. Meanwhile, Blackwood has been sentenced to death and requests to see Holmes in prison, where he warns of three more unstoppable deaths that will cause great changes to the world. Blackwood is subsequently hanged and pronounced dead by Watson. Three days later, Holmes is visited by Irene Adler (Rachel McAdams), a professional thief and his former adversary, who asks him to find a missing man named Luke Reordan. After her departure, Holmes follows her as she meets with her secret employer, hidden in the shadows of a carriage. The concealed man states that Reordan is the key to Blackwood's plans. Holmes only learns that the man is a professor and that he intimidates Adler.

Blackwood's tomb is destroyed from the inside out, Reordan is found dead inside the coffin, and sightings of a living Blackwood, which has left a gravedigger in shock, cause public panic. Following a series of clues from the body, Holmes and Watson find Reordan's home and discover experiments attempting to merge science with magic. After they survive a battle with Blackwood's men, Holmes is taken to the Temple of the Four Orders, a secret magical organization. The leaders – Lord Chief Justice Sir Thomas Rotheram (James Fox), U.S. Ambassador Standish (William Hope), and Home Secretary Lord Coward (Hans Matheson) – ask Holmes to stop Blackwood, a former member of the society and, as Holmes deduces from physical similarities, Sir Thomas' son. Sir Thomas and Standish are later killed through apparently supernatural means by Blackwood, allowing him to control the Order. He plans to overthrow the British government, then conquer the United States and the world. He lures Holmes to a warehouse where he finds Adler, chained to a hook, gagged, and heading towards a bandsaw, though he saves her in time. However Watson is injured in a series of explosions set up by Blackwood. Lord Coward, secretly working with Blackwood, issues an arrest warrant for Holmes.

Holmes goes into hiding and studies Blackwood's rituals, concluding that the next target is Parliament. Holmes tricks Coward into revealing that the plan is to kill its members. He, Adler and Watson discover a machine below the Palace of Westminster, based on Reordan's experiments, designed to release cyanide gas into the Parliament chambers, killing everyone but Blackwood and his supporters, to whom Blackwood slipped the antidote. Blackwood walks into Parliament and announces that soon all but his supporters will die. As Holmes and Watson battle Blackwood's men, Adler removes the cyanide containers from the machine and flees, pursued by Holmes. Blackwood and Coward realize their plan has failed; Coward is captured but Blackwood escapes. Holmes confronts Adler on top of the incomplete Tower Bridge, but is interrupted by Blackwood. Holmes tricks him into becoming entangled in the ropes and chains hanging over the Thames, while Holmes explains the technical trickery behind Blackwood's supposed magic. As they battle, Blackwood, with a noose of chains around his neck, falls from the bridge and is hanged.

Adler explains that her employer is Professor Moriarty, warning that Moriarty is as intelligent as Holmes but far more devious. As Watson moves out of 221B, the police report to him and Holmes that a dead officer was found near Blackwood's device. Moriarty used the confrontations with Adler and Blackwood as a diversion while he took a key component, based on the new science of radio, from the machine. Holmes looks forward to the new case and new adversary.

Reviews

The film has received generally positive reviews. Review aggregate Rotten Tomatoes reports that 70% of critics have given the film a positive review based on 224 reviews, with a rating average of 6.2 out of 10, with the consensus being that "Guy Ritchie's directorial style might not be quite the best fit for an update on the legendary detective, but Sherlock Holmes benefits from the elementary appeal of a strong performance by Robert Downey, Jr." Among Rotten Tomatoes' "Top Critics", which consists of popular and notable critics from the top newspapers, websites, television and radio programs, the film holds an overall approval rating of 57%, based on a sample of 37 reviews. Metacritic, which assigns a weighted average score out of 1–100 reviews from film critics, has a rating score of 57 based on 34 reviews.

Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film three out of four stars and highlighted the film's strong characters, visuals and action-packed plot; the characters were also praised by Jake Tomlinson of Shave Magazine, who believed that Downey, Jr. and Law were "perfect together" and that Strong was "a convincing and creepy villain".

A. O. Scott of the New York Times noted that the director's approach to films was "to make cool movies about cool guys with cool stuff" and that Sherlock Holmes was essentially "a series of poses and stunts" which was "intermittently diverting" at best.

David Stratton of The Australian disliked the film's interpretation of the original Holmes stories and concluded, "The makers of this film are mainly interested in action; that, they believe, is all that gets young audiences into cinemas today. They may be right, but they have ridden roughshod over one of literature's greatest creations in the process." He praised the production design and score.

The Cast

Robert Downey Jr. as Sherlock Holmes
 Jude Law as Dr. John Watson
 Rachel McAdams as Irene Adler
 Mark Strong as Lord Blackwood
 Eddie Marsan as Inspector Lestrade
 Robert Maillet as Dredger
 Geraldine James as Mrs. Hudson
 Kelly Reilly as Mary Morstan
 William Houston as Constable Clark
 Hans Matheson as Lord Coward
 James Fox as Sir Thomas Rotheram
 William Hope as Ambassador Standish
 Clive Russell as Captain Tanner
 Oran Gurel as Reordan
 David Garrick as McMurdo

James A. Stephens as Captain Philips