You'll never hear me say a nasty thing about Robert Downey Jr., as I have a lot of respect for the man and a lot of appreciation for the films he's done ... but having said that, I cannot help but express the following opinion: The trailer for his new movie looks like, well, like no Sherlock Holmes story I've ever seen. Obviously one can never judge an unfinished film by the quality of its promotional materials, but if this clip is what we can expect from the whole of Guy Ritchie's Sherlock Holmes, I'm ... well, I'm still interested. But now highly skeptical. And a little shocked.

I guess my main question is this: If your goal is to make a Victorian-era action comedy, and that sounds good to me, why must it be called Sherlock Holmes? (I'd suggest Sherlock Holmes and the Deluge of Weird Changes.) I'll leave it to the experts to pick the specific nits, but I'm betting the original Arthur Conan Doyle stories didn't have quite so many gunfights, boxing matches, explosions, and crotch jokes. At this point the thing looks like Young Sherlock Holmes meets The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen vs. Van Helsing: At World's End ... which, I'll admit, could still be a lot of fun.




Thoughts from the crowd? Am I being too rough on what's clearly a tongue-in-cheek mega-revision of the classic character? Aren't I the one who's always telling people to rent the Holmes farce Without a Clue? I guess I just wasn't expecting that many explosions is all. Indeed, Erik Davis has clued me in that, yes, Sherlock Holmes DID know how to brawl, and his point is backed up by Wikipedia. Still, is the flick even a mystery story?