Yet another quintessential character has been dispensed through the blockbuster factory, resulting as a cutting-edge bionic man. As he is always inclined to do, Guy Ritchie saturates his biggest movie to date with stylish visuals and exaggerated characters, and a death-defying scramble atop Tower Bridge, which is unfinished. It's great for today's action fans, as well as the same 12- and 13-year-old boys we were when we first saw Lock, Stock and Snatch. This hugely liberty-taking extravaganza achieves the exotic state-of-the-art tradition of full-energy action and preposterous CGI, and Holmes and Watson do their best to adjust. Holmes discards the hat and pipe, and Watson has resolved at long last to leave the ironic harmony of Holmes' digs for the perils of married life.

Holmes, way more than James Bond, Batman, Tom Ripley and the characters of Shakespeare, has endured innumerable portrayals. Robert Downey Jr., who is not the most insignificant of these. Downey's Holmes is both less restrained and in better physical shape than past personifications. Holmes' accepted fondness for cocaine is here increased by other drugs and lots of alcohol. However Holmes has the physique of a vigorous gymnast, the precision of an acrobat and the fisticuffs of Jackie Chan or Bruce Lee. He and Watson bounce effortlessly into action like Batman and Robin.

In the opening sequence, the two barge forth upon the diabolical satanist Lord Blackwood, played by Mark Strong, a great actor, great at playing villains, who here is at his most awkward. They arrive as he is performing a despicable deed, and he is sent to the gallows and enclosed in his tomb, just to return evidently not dead. This mobilizes not as much of a line of astute observation, deductive reasoning and forensic skills as a succession of martial arts and mass destruction tableaux in the streets of London, which have never appeared more doomed, cloudy and foreboding. I had the feeling the Hughes brothers were filming From Hell on the other side of the block. Now I will concede that there is a particularly awesome classic-Ritchie moment that merges Holmes' masterful deduction and whiplash pugilism, super slo-mo and voice-over taking us through his logical steps of incapacitating a fight opponent, followed by a sudden blur of motion where all of that is executed. High point of the movie.

After the first capture of Blackwood, Holmes retires to his abode. In recognized Sherlock lore, this is usually described as "a period of study," inferring cocaine and opium fantasies. In Ritchie's version, he ravages his rooms like an inebriated coed, merely just missing old pizza boxes. This will not do. Supposedly, Sherlock is chiefly meticulous. At any rate, Blackwood's revival is just the sort of mystifying black magic front one does expect from a Holmes story, and it gives him a new inducement of life.

There is also concern for two women: Rachel McAdams playing the Holmes character alleged to be the sole woman to ever reach Holmes' soft spot, and Kelly Reilly playing Watson's betrothed, who may be in for more than she realizes. The dawn of Mary on the scene throws Holmes into bitter outbursts: How dare the doctor favor a woman over his own scintillating companionship? Watson has invariably assumed proper domain elsewhere, but in this film, the intimate habitat of Holmes' place make his other rooms appear more than ever like a front.

The Conan Doyle stories are still read, and likely will be forever. Most readers get to one or two. But among moviegoers of the 09-10 winter season, not so many seem likely. But it seemed to me the majority of us were nonetheless amused for a couple of hours, including myself. Ritchie, his writers and Warner Bros. simply appear to be chiefly concerned with action. That, they unfortunately believe, is all that gets young audiences into theaters today. If that's all they give them, they're going to be correct in time anyway. However, the master of deduction, who has endured so much, can surely bear with some explosions and kung fu.