Guy Ritchie's Sherlock Holmes lived up to all my expectations, and I was expecting a lot. The plot follows Holmes (Downey Jr.) and Watson (Law) after they capture Lord Blackwood (Strong) and turn him in to the police for sacrificing people in black magic rituals. He is sentenced to death by hanging and Dr. Watson himself pronounces him dead, but Lord Blackwood rises from the grave a few days later and the otherworldly killings begin again. To make matters worse, one of Holmes's old love interests, Irene Adler (McAdams), comes back into his life after being hired by a mysterious professor to ask him to locate a missing scientist. Everything eventually ties together at the end, but a new mystery emerges that will likely be tackled in a sequel. A sequel that I will be first in line to watch.
For fans of Guy Ritchie or fans of Robert Downey Jr., this is a match made in heaven. This ranks up there as one of the absolute coolest movies either of them have done. As an action movie, we get to see Holmes's deductive reasoning in action--literally--in some awesome fight sequences. The difference between this and Guy Ritchie's earlier movies is that here he has excellent source material to provide well-developed characters that round out the over-stylized action. All their flaws and complexities are explored so we can see with absolute clarity how annoying Holmes can be and how angry Watson can get. I'm a sucker for con movies, sweet action flicks, and Guy Ritchie pictures; in Sherlock Holmes I can get all my desires satisfied. Highly recommended.IMDb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0988045/