No schtick, Sherlock

In theaters Friday: The White Ribbon [limited]

New on DVD/Blu-ray: 9, Facing Ali, Jennifer’s Body, Paranormal Activity

Make way for a new hero by the name of Sherlock Holmes. Director Guy Ritchie has breathed fresh life into England’s once-staid, turn-of-the-Century detective and reforged Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s short story creation back into the popular, sequel-ready star he was originally intended to be. With the acid tongue of Dr. Gregory House, the wild-eyed eccentricity of Captain Jack Sparrow, and the flawed, cavalier soul of Indiana Jones, Robert Downey Jr.’s Holmes is a smart aleck, a rake, the kind of guy you’d alternately love and loathe having at your party. He’s got a man-crush on his roommate, Dr. Watson, and a masochistic real crush on the greatest swindler in the world, Irene Adler—the only criminal to have escaped his not inconsiderable grasp. And yes, Downey’s accent is spot on.

The film starts with an exhilarating foot race to stop Lord Blackwood, a murderous occultist with a foreboding, slanted-toothed snarl from ritually killing his latest in a series of female sacrifices. As Holmes’ clever voiceover tells us exactly how and where he plans to strike each thug in his path before he subdues his opponents and Jude Law’s stalwart Dr. Watson applies a perfect sleeper hold on one attacker, it all seems too easy. The dynamic duo stops Blackwood and saves the girl before the bumbling policemen arrive, but it’s not long before Holmes realizes Blackwood has a more sinister plot in mind.

The day after he is judged and hanged, Blackwood’s stone tomb is found busted open from the inside, the body of a “red-haired midget” is in his coffin instead and the nearly catatonic cemetery gardener says he witnessed Blackwood walk out of his grave. The case, as Holmes says, is afoot.

Co-written by Anthony Peckham, the man behind this year’s Clint Eastwood-directed Invictus and 2001’s mystery thriller Don’t Say a Word, this Holmes script is smart and deliberately paced with enough memorable thrills and set pieces to give a Steven Speilberg actioner a run for its money. And that’s the point. He may be a genius and an Englishman, but Sherlock can get his hands dirty, too. With Law’s Watson a more wiry, conflicted and intelligent partner than any Holmes has had before, they make a splendidly cohesive and hilariously bickering team.

While the whiz-bang editing and slow-motion ramping effects may be too much for those uninitiated into the Guy Ritchie fold by his earlier London gangster flicks Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, Snatch or last year’s underrated Rocknrolla, these tricks complement the many plot twists that bare themselves in conversation and Holmes’ consistent verbal reveals. Without the action, Sherlock Holmes simply would be too talky. In some ways, Ritchie is perfect for this story. His “show first, explain later” style fits the puzzle-solving narrative like the sword Watson sheaths swiftly into his cane. Of course, the story is extremely British, so Ritchie might consider setting future Holmes movies in other, more foreign realms of the former Empire (I’d suggest India and America).

Watching Sherlock Holmes—especially with its baddies bent on a kind of Masonic New World Order domination—one gets the feeling that it is as clever and thrilling as Ron Howard and Tom Hanks wished their Dan Brown adaptations could be. But Hanks’ Robert Langdon can’t touch the charisma Downey summons as the good inspector. Just as Health Ledger reinvented the Joker two years ago, Downey has introduced us to a classic character we thought we knew, but really didn’t. If there aren’t at least two sequels to this film, I will be shocked. And with the big reveal of Holmes’ soon-to-be arch nemesis Professor Moriarity looming for the sequel, the right casting of a big star could send this franchise into orbit.