Watch it, by all means, for a dazzling visual feast, but be warned, this Sherlock is more show than tell.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Apr 17, 2019

The Victorian sets are terrific and the performances of Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law, both consummate actors with a special style, are excellent. Nevertheless, their performances are not enough to compensate for a less than stellar script.

| Jan 16, 2018

As for the film itself, in true Guy Ritchie style is was all over the place with the craziness. But if you can set aside your image of Boyle's Sherlock, you may enjoy this a little more.

| Original Score: B | Sep 11, 2017

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Nov 17, 2011

Despite a few laggard moments of slow going, Ritchie has pulled off an entertaining coup in giving us a Holmes for the 21st century by digging back to the 19th century original and adding a few bells and whistles.

| Jan 15, 2010

It's everything you want from a family holiday movie, but not worthy of the world's greatest detective.

Full Review | Jan 5, 2010

Nigh-on unforgivable. An all-fumbling, all-bumbling, all-trundling crock of crud, that's not so much Snatch in a Deerstalker as bum on a flagpole.

| Jan 5, 2010

What was the thinking behind all this?

| Original Score: C- | Jan 4, 2010

In short, this movie somehow does Doyle proud, and unlike other revisionist takes on the detective gone horribly wrong (like 1985's Young Sherlock Holmes) this one gets so much right enjoying it is positively elementary.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Dec 28, 2009

It's all knotted together, then unraveled with brio, by Holmes and Watson. There are fisticuffs galore, fiery combustion aplenty, and, yes, my dear reader, clever deduction.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Dec 28, 2009

The very idea of handing him over to professional lad Guy Ritchie, to be played as a punch-throwing quipster by Robert Downey Jr., is so profoundly stupid one can only step back in dismay.

| Dec 28, 2009

Downey never winks -- heâ(TM)s too much of a pro for that -- but like the man heâ(TM)s playing, heâ(TM)s much, much smarter than the movie heâ(TM)s in.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Dec 28, 2009

[Downey's] more masculine interpretation of the character is never anything less than startling, fresh, and altogether entertaining.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Dec 28, 2009

By now we've seen so many good, bad, and indifferent Sherlocks that it's almost a relief to get something different, however wrongheaded. And there's no such thing as too much Downey.

| Dec 28, 2009

Downey Jr. plays the brainiac detective like an overheating machine -- what cools him off is a puzzle.

| Original Score: A | Dec 26, 2009

Playing literature's greatest detective as a sort of self-loathing action hero, Downey has an absolute blast. And thanks to his performance in Sherlock Holmes, so do we.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Dec 26, 2009

A decent action movie that goes down like fast food would often be enough to recommend, but generations of Holmes fans and those who have come to expect more from actors this talented may be disappointed that it's not closer to filet mignon.

| Dec 26, 2009

Though purists may balk at Arthur Conan Doyle's literary world being manhandled into a blockbuster by never-subtle director Guy Ritchie, Downey has a winning take on Holmes: He's always on.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Dec 25, 2009

What is surprising is how bland the results are. The explosions and action sequences have an odd cheapness to them and the central plot is one of those dreary take-over-the-world routines.

| Dec 25, 2009

At times, Ritchie and company try so hard to make sure this isn't your father's Sherlock Holmes that it comes across as, well, cartoonish.

| Original Score: 1.5/4 | Dec 25, 2009