The combination of Victorian steampunk, asterism, Robert Downey Jr., Jude Law and Guy Ritchie makes any film worth watching despite all possibilities. I started watching Sherlock Holmes with this mind relaxing prejudice; with a great opening sequence, a mediocre narrative tempo and a ‘baddie’ not enough strong to counteract Holmes’ image as a protagonist, the film could not go beyond average for me despite all its fun.

Guy Ritchie’s adoration for himself and his work usually leaves the film audience watching how Ritchie plays with the film. This ‘authorship’ approach is a style I quite like, especially when carried out in a formalist way, however the excitement of working with Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law is added to this in Sherlock Holmes. The lack of scenes without Robert Downey Jr. means there is no secret for the audience to discover without Holmes’ services. Watching a detective film tends to lose its appeal when we are not allowed to play detective.

Detection as an occupation originating in the Victorian period is frequently used in popular culture to describe the modern enlightenment at the end of 19th century. I think we will continue to see these themes as we are going through what is a projection of the early 20th century (religion/enlightenment=eclipse of reason + esoterism). Two good books on this topic are The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher by Kate Summerscale who describes the initial period when detectives enter social life as a new notion and Alan Moore’s From Hell which i had mentioned in an earlier post.

It will be difficult to expect a film from Guy Ritchie that manages to do more than just watchable films, however he is very skilled in using the camera and the suddenly speeding up slow motion trick. Whether the fact that this was the best element from Sherlock Holmes, and his other films, is a good or bad thing, I leave it up to him to decide.