I haven't seen Sherlock Holmes, director Guy Ritchie's big-screen "reimagination" of literature's most famous detective and, frankly, I have had no interest in seeing it. I was so appalled by the early trailers—the movie looked like it should have been titled Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Calabash Pipes—that I planned on boycotting the enterprise, despite my admiration for Robert Downey, Jr., whom Ritchie recruited to play Holmes, and Jude Law, who I thought was terrific in The Talented Mr. Ripley. Don't we have enough cinematic action heroes without turning Arthur Conan Doyle's "calculating machine" into a late Victorian James Bond?
That said, Matt Yglesias reminds us that Holmes could be a physically imposing dude when he chose to throw down (to use a term Guy Ritchie would approve):
Some people feel that this action-oriented version of Holmes is untrue to the original. I think this is wrong...The print Holmes is clearly described as an expert singlestick fighter and accomplished barenuckle boxer. He gets into fisticuffs and always wins...But bringing more emphasis to this kind of thing is exactly what a screen adaptation of a well-known print character should be for—elements of the character that are de-emphasized by the print medium are rightly brought into sharper focus for a movie.
So far, the critics have been all over the map on this flick. I'm not going to review a film I haven't seen, but if I do make it to the multiplex to see Holmes eventually, I'll certainly throw in my two shillings.