Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows (2011)

Director: Guy Ritchie

Cast: Robert Downey Jr., Jude Law, Noomi Rapace, Jared Harris

Have I Seen It Before: Yep.

Did I Like It: I was a little down on Sherlock Holmes (2009) when I re-watched it recently, feeling like it was taking stray elements of the Doyle Canon and packaging it into an assembly-line action movie. All of the ominous portents of the Moriarty (Harris) to follow in that original film come to pass here. That means this becomes a sausage of typical action movie sequels, filled with bits of the Doyle Canon.

And somehow, I found myself enjoying it more than I did the original. Why? There’s something to be said for those genre films that feel unencumbered by setting things up. There’s a breezy adventure to be had here. It also helps that everything that did work about the original has mostly stayed in place here. Rachel McAdams is tragically underused*, but Downey and Law’s chemistry is still firmly in place, and the rustic score and production design set this apart from other on-screen Holmeses and Watsons.

With a rebound like this, it’s kind of a wonder how this film series hasn’t continued with several more entries up until this point. Even in those uncertain years before Avengers: Endgame (2019) and Oppenheimer (2023), a return to Baker Street might have been a smart move for Downey’s career. There are even whispers of a return trip with this version of the detectives (although who knows if Ritchie will be on board) is still in the offing, but I have a hard time imagining such a film existing without it being primarily about Holmes and Watson being over the hell. That feels less fun, and like it has been done before.

Then again, blanching at the idea of “it’s been done before,” would mean that no one would ever play the detectives again.

*She may be the Paul Winfield of female movie stars tragically underused in franchise sequels. I’m looking in your direction, this film, and Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022).

Sherlock Holmes (2009)

Director: Guy Ritchie

Cast: Robert Downey Jr., Jude Law, Rachel McAdams, Mark Strong

Have I Seen it Before: Oh, sure. Some of you might have a hard time remembering, but in the late aughts, early twenty-tens, you were actually subject to being charged with a misdemeanor if you missed the theatrical run of a Robert Downey Jr. movie.

Did I Like It: Is the film great, or is it just that hard to screw up an adventure with Holmes and Watson*? Purists may want to blanche at any number of decisions made here. An American playing the detective is the kind of uncertain choice people might harp upon. Other Americans have played the role, to be sure, and while Downey manages to bring his breezy torrent of cool behavior to the role, there’s something in his attempt at an accent that makes one wonder if he ever really shook off the immersion he attempted in Chaplin (1992).

Jamming the stories of Conan Doyle into an almost obsessively paint-by-numbers action movie might draw some complaints as well. It’s fundamentally a buddy-cop movie. We see a big set piece in the early minutes of the film, and sure enough, it is the backdrop for the climax. To remind us all that it is indeed the late 2000s/early-2010s, Mark Strong plays our starter villain, and hints are strewn about that if we all avoided our potential misdemeanors, Holmes and Watson will face off against their rightful villain here in a couple of years.

And yet, it all kind of works. I had a good time then, and I have a good time now. Maybe Downey is really that charming. Maybe—and I really do think this is the answer—it is, indeed, a far loftier challenge to screw up Sherlock Holmes than we might have originally thought.

*Will Ferrell and company managed to get the job done in Holmes & Watson (2018), but the less said about that, the happier we all will be.

The Hound of the Baskervilles (1939)

Director: Sidney Lanfield

Cast: Basil Rathbone, Nigel Bruce, Richard Greene, Wendy Barrie

Have I Seen It Before: Sure.

Did I Like It: I keep thinking that certain types of stories, certain types of characters, are better suited to certain formats, with a few outlying exceptions. Batman works best in a comic book. Star Trek works best in hour-long television. Star Wars works best in rare, event movies.

Is it possible that Sherlock Holmes just works best in novels and short fiction?

Maybe.

Things are a little light here, and that’s to be expected from the studio system trying to jam a entire book into 80 minutes. Even a bad movie from 1939 has the charm of flickering in black and white and generally seeming as if it sprung whole-cloth from an untroubled* era.

Rathbone and Bruce seem tentative in their roles, but I wonder if I simply never thought much of the pair as Holmes and Watson, even if so many performers who followed are simply doing impressions of them.

The problem might be that one of the things filtered out of these Doyle adaptations is Holmes’ eccentricities. Subsequent pastiches and re-workings make Holmes to be brilliant, but erratic. Here, Holmes is merely a Smart Guy, and Watson—the only one with any actual training—is a bumbling fool.

Maybe they get better in the roles, but considering they had to grind out two Holmes pictures a year for the next seven years, I can’t imagine the assembly line mentality recommends the subsequent films any more than this first effort. The truth might be that those among you who might want to indulge in a does of classic Holmes should eschew Turner Classic Movies** in favor of the Doyle canon.

Or opt for some of the Nicholas Meyer books. There, now I’m back to my good old self.

*But, ultimately, entirely troubled.

**Gods of Cinema, what am I saying?!

Holmes & Watson (2018)

Director: Etan Cohen

Cast: Will Ferrell, John C. Reilly, Rebecca Hall, Ralph Fiennes

Have I Seen it Before: No. It feels like a weird time. I live in an age when it takes something to get me out to the theater (indeed, I have only been once since I was vaccinated in April). In the before times, I’d go see anything, and I didn’t even need a Moviepass to convince me. Despite enjoying Ferrell and Reilly, and being—if a bit of neophyte—a Holmesian at heart, this one missed me.

The word of mouth was truly that toxic. 

Did I Like It: The notion of a comedy Sherlock Holmes film is not a bad one. Without a Clue (1988) performed that beyond a doubt. Even this film, on spec, wasn’t a terrible idea for the many, many years it languished in development hell. Originally, it would have had Ferrell as Watson and Sacha Baron Cohen as Holmes. That’s actually pretty great casting. That film could have turned out fine, if the anarchic spirit of Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy (2004) would have brought to its full potential.

That is not the cast we got. Nor is it the film we got.

Reilly can cut the right sort of Nigel Bruce-esque buffoon that is the instinct of many who approach Baker Street, but Ferrell, on spec, isn’t in the slightest bit Holmes. His whole comedic personae is based on the screaming, overconfident idiot. Holmes can be an idiot, but he needs to always look like he’s trying to figure things out. Baron Cohen could have done that in his sleep.

It might feel reductive to judge what is clearly meant to be a comedy by “how many times I laughed,” but when I know it was no more than twice, with one of them being in the title card, that’s not a great jumping off point for discussing the film.

Also, that Billy Zane cameo was such a drag, and stuck out like such a sore thumb, I couldn’t even recommend the film as the kind of thing you could benignly play in the background and ignore.

It is a failure. Go watch Without a Clue, which I might very well do now that I’ve thought about it far more than the film in question here.

Mr. Holmes (2015)

Director: Bill Condon

Cast: Ian McKellen, Laura Linney, Milo Parker, Hiroyuki Sanada

Have I Seen it Before: Never. It’s been a sealed Blu Ray sitting on my shelf for years. As it stood, I made a conscious decision to avoid any and all Holmes pastiches, as I was busy making my own. Now, with that project nearly a year behind me, and God only knows when I will break down and return to it in some fashion, I’ve taken the opportunity to dip my toe back in the pool.

Did I Like It: Really, quite a bit. The character of Holmes is almost universally depicted as being a refined alloy of logic and ability. Even Doyle only occasionally made his detective human. The Seven-Per-Cent Solution (1976) gives him some foibles, but this is the first (and last, given his age) we see the man as someone with regret and feeling for his fellow human beings. 

McKellan cuts a believable figure at various stages of Holmes as an older man. Surely some of it is aided by makeup, but it is subtle work and I believe the man in his seventies is a distinctly different figure than what he is like at his nineties. A lot of it is in the performance. He is spry and vital in the film’s flashbacks, and withered and struggling during the main storyline. It’s an impressive performance. Eagle-eyed fans of the Sherlockana will pick up on Nicholas Rowe—of Young Sherlock Holmes (1985) fame—as Holmes in the movie old Sherlock takes in. Two Sherlocks for the price of one. You’d have to go to, well, my own work to get that kind of a bargain.

But the question persists: is it a good Sherlock film. Seeing the old man passing his time as bee-keeper is interesting enough as a character study, but sleuthing must be afoot if we’re going to spend time with him, no? I’m happy to report the mystery is quite good, but again, of a more personal nature. It doesn’t artificially insert him in his retirement into palace intrigue, it just puts what is left of his skills to the test and believably sells the tension of the story.

It will read strangely, but I am glad I waited to finally see this one. Had I watched it before The Fourth Wall, it may have stymied my creative instincts. As it stands now, I was able to take in the story on its own terms and instead just enjoy it.