Stars Robert Downey Jr, Jude Law, Rachel McAdams, Mark Strong, Kelly Reilly, James Fox

Guy Ritchie has come in for a lot of stick since striking gold with his debut feature Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels which, though popular and well-executed, was a derivative, self-indulgent affair.

With the mockney gangster-style films that followed – namely Snatch, Revolver and RocknRolla (the less said about the disastrous Swept Away, the better) – you might accuse Ritchie of being a one-trick pony but one thing’s for sure, he doesn’t let the sniping get to him.

Oh yes, Guy Ritchie’s back and this time it’s with a big-budget Hollywood blockbuster.

Updated and given a Tinseltown makeover, Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes is not the well-dressed, prim and proper gentlemen of old. Instead,  Ritchie brings us a rough, tough and ever-so-slightly eccentric private dick with a questionable moral code and a bent for unpredictability.

Scripted not by Ritchie but by a team of screenwriters, the story opens with Holmes (Robert Downey Jr) and Dr Watson (Jude Law) solving the mystery behind a series of ritualistic murders. Putting the perpetrator behind bars and sentencing him to death promises to put an end to nemesis Blackwood’s (Mark Strong) nefarious deeds – but when the murders begin again, all is not what it seems. 

Blackwood appears to have risen from the grave to resume his killing spree and it is up to Holmes to get to the bottom of Blackwood’s evil and potentially devastating plot. At the same time, he to attend to affairs of the heart. 

Sherlock Holmes marks something of a departure for Guy Ritchie as he all but abandons his usual style and preferred subject matter for an all-together more mainstream project.

Some Ritchie elements remain, notably in the bare-knuckle fighting scene and his Tarantino-inspired predilection for playing around with the structure of the traditional linear narrative. With his distinctive touch used sparingly, the film is less self-reflexive and consequently more involving and all the better for it.

As the film progresses and the Hollywood action-adventure element takes over, the film takes on a more mainstream feel, becoming something akin to an Indiana Jones or National Treasure-style romp.

Downey Jr is perfect as an unhinged, lissome Holmes while Jude Law is a gorgeous and highly effective Dr Watson. Kelly Reilly is sadly wasted in her small role as Watson’s intended while Rachel McAdams complicates matters as Holmes’s love match. Mark Strong’s dulcet tones, meanwhile, serve the role of the villain delectably.

Ritchie’s Holmes may horrify purists, even if he does claim to have remained faithful in many ways to the original Arthur Conan Doyle books, but on this evidence there is every reason to believe it will be a box office smash and spawn a money-spinning franchise.

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