Sherlock Holmes (2009)

Who would have thought the best thing to happen to Guy Ritchie's work would be to dump Madonna? In my opinion, everything he has done since their break-up is fun to watch. If nothing else, his movies are way more marketable than before. Any ideas why?

Any other ideas why he used an American to play Holmes however? Okay, fair enough, perhaps only the massive ego of Robert Downey, Jr. could replicate that of the fictional Holmes. What? Am I wrong about that?

Jude Law is perfect as the faithful Dr. Watson, and Rachel McAdams is devilish as Irene Adler, the only woman Holmes ever saw as an "equal" in the original series of stories.

The bad guys in this tale are played well by Mark Strong (a Guy Ritchie regular) and Ed Tolputt, though we never see Tolputt's face.

What seems odd to me here is that the story spins as if Holmes had never heard of Professor Moriarity before. In the original Conan Doyle stories he was the arch-nemesis of Holmes. So one might think this story a prequel. But wait, at one point in the story Watson reminds Holmes that Ms. Adler is the only criminal to outwit Holmes twice. These stories are part of the well-known Holmes lore. So the coexistence of those two characters in the same story under these conditions is a little inconsistent. That is by no means a spoiler by the way.

Watch this movie with someone who knows the basic characters and can keep up with the rapid fire dialogue.