Sherlock Holmes, directed by Guy Ritchie. Robert Downey Jr. as Holmes (a pretty good Holmes), Jude Law as Watson (bears no resemblance to the original Watson -- this Watson is a street-fighting stud who dresses nattily), and Michael Strong, as Lord Blackwood (who looks like a 30s movie Dracula).
The new Sherlock Holmes film (no title other than the name?) is a lot of fun. It's really an action film, from start to finish. Much of the time, I had no idea what was going on. And what was going on was preposterous. Doesn't matter.
A couple of things I missed, that I wish they would think about for the sequel: 1) the Holmes stories were always, at bottom, realistic. They presented Holmes and Watson with an inexplicable event or mystery (a person disappears, a crime is committed with seemingly no clues left behind). Holmes always proves that the crime CAN be explained. If we go too far over the edge into the fantastical and unrealistic, then we're left with Holmes and Watson as cartoon figures. 2) We're in late 19th century London and, as Doyle did with the original stories, it's good to linger on the details of the story, or of life. The movie does that a little, but in its rush to get to the next action scene, it obliterates Holmes's background solidity. He meditates. He thinks. He walks slowly and ponders sometimes.
But it's a decent romp all the same.
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