Published: 15 December, 2011
by DAN CARRIER

Directed by Guy Ritchie
Certificate PG

Rating: 4 Out Of 5 Stars

I see everything,” Robert Downey Jr’s Sherlock Holmes tells assorted sidekicks, “that is my curse.”

In this second instalment of Guy Ritchie’s take on the Victorian detective, Holmes’s legendary powers of deduction take a step into the realms of super-powers rather than careful thought and weighing up of probables.

He’s so in tune with the world around him he can see the outcome of some backstreet fisticuffs before the first blow is thrown.

Handy, that, especially as this Holmes is more than keen on the rough stuff than previous incarnations. Instead of leaning back in a balloon-back chair and letting his mind sift over evidence, he puts ’em up!

It makes this film stand apart from the many previous Holmeses we’ve been treated to.

Earlier efforts have stuck very gamely to the original vision.

There have been well over 50 major adaptations, based on the Conan Doyle stories.

This film, however, takes the basic facts of Holmes and then gives him a whole new adventure to scrape through.

This film actually has very little to do with Holmes as we know him.

Basically, the name’s the same, as is that of his sidekick, Dr Watson, and his chief enemy, Moriarty.

But it could really be anyone – it’s so different to the Holmes world we are used to it could essentially be any other clever Victorian chap.

This isn’t a criticism as such, more an observation – I don’t need to see a deerstalker-toting drug addict, deducing stuff from the most minor of clues.

It’s that just this is a very new Sherlock, one that has been updated and given a very modern twist.

We meet our detective as he fumbles about in his Baker Street home, befuddled by various drugs and having to plan Dr Watson’s stag do.

While he may not seem totally on top of his game, his mind is so taken up with various events around the world, that his super-analytical brain believes there is a link.

An Indian cotton tycoon’s business is engulfed in scandal, a Chinese opium trader dies of an overdose, anarchists bomb buildings in Strasbourg and Vienna.

Seemingly unconnected, but Holmes uses his almost super-human detective skills to find a link – and at the centre of all this is his arch enemy, Moriarty.

They head all over Europe trying to deduce what exactly Moriarty is up to – kicking off a world war seems very much to be his aim – and try stop this dastardly maniac before it’s too late.

The film looks lovely.

From the muddy streets of Victorian London to the various contraptions that riddle the film, the care in creating a stage for the action is pristine.

In Downey Jr, Jude Law, Stephen Fry, Noomi Rapace and Jared Harris there is a strong cast. Fry pops up as Holmes’s brother. His character is ready to lend a hand when needed.

It is a nice turn, but frankly, this is Stephen Fry playing Stephen Fry.

Still, national treasure and all that, so we can let him off.

Above all, this Sherlock rushes along at a fair pace, and is good, escapist fun.

Yet it feels a little soulless, a little too much of a clichéd action adventure with too much manufactured eccentricity and not enough authentic Victorian, gothic quirk.