Movie reviews
“Everything,” comes the arch reply from Holmes (Robert Downey Jr), which in a nutshell sums up Guy Ritchie’s knowing, subversive take on arguably the greatest fictional detective of them all. Purists might reject the knockabout comedy of Ritchie’s opening gambits here, which echo Ritchie’s original ‘reboot’ of the Holmes oeuvre in 2009; they may also protest against the fact that Holmes’ last case, in which he confronts his intellectual equal and criminal mastermind Professor Moriarty (Jared Harris) in a winner-takes-all showdown at the Reichenbach Falls, is played largely as broad farce.
Loosely based on Arthur Conan Doyle’s short story The Final Problem, the story finds Holmes’ life under threat as Moriarty goes to extraordinary lengths to prevent the detective from discovering that Moriarty’s master-plan involves fomenting war in Europe, so as to reap the financial rewards of killing on an industrial scale. That motive is deliciously cynical, and perhaps even timely given the squabbles in Brussels over the future direction of Europe, but Ritchie and his screenwriters seem happiest when debunking the Holmes myth, particularly in their efforts to inject a homoerotic element into the tale. At one point, for example, Holmes tosses Dr Watson (Jude Law) into a river from a moving train whilst disguised as a woman, leading Watson to protest that he and Holmes are in a partnership, rather than a relationship. Meanwhile, a secondary sub-plot involving Noomi Rapace as the most unconvincing gypsy ever committed to celluloid is a complete waste of time. For all its faults the movie does have a ramshackle charm that benefits hugely from Downey Jr’s chutzpah as he plays the bowdlerised Holmes with a comically straight bat, his perpetually perplexed (and badly bruised) features offering a wry commentary on Sherlock Holmes’ legendary intellect. There’s also the bonus of Stephen Fry mugging furiously as Holmes’ even more intelligent brother, Mycroft, although the world is in a bad enough state of chassis without Guy Ritchie offering us a flash of Stephen Fry’s bum.
