While casting good actors, this is a murder of Conan Doyle's original creation made to work for the modern generation of "the stupid". While cinematicly interesting and attractive for the people who have never read a book a day, or even a book a month, as most Ritchie's films are (I love Lock Stock too), this take on the classic is a step too far.

Jude Law is great as Watson, i never doubted that character in his hands (similar to Russian Solomin who played Watson brilliantly, with a healthy dose of humour too), Robert Downey is the usual American take on a superhero, despite of Ritchie's UK heritage, he comes across very far from the character Doyle created. I like Robert Downey too, normally, as an actor, but he';s gone quite a few notches down in my popularity list after making this but not to discredit him too much, Ritchie's whole idea to modernise Holmes stories for the new "internet generation" or illiterat6e people who have never held a book in their hands is rather shallow and pathetic (or pedantic as peter Griffin would say), especially for those who love Conan Doyle's books, as most of US remakes of classics are. I am sure i will be disagreed with, especially by those who have not read those books until the pages worn off....

When you grow up as a kid, reading every Sherlock Holmes story 30-50 times, because they are brilliant (and the main reason for myself to immigrate to UK 16 years ago from Ukraine), you begin to realise how bad the modern films (based on classic books) are, making them "interesting" and "exciting" for the new generations, but he might as well have made it in the 80's, with Arnie and Sly, as the main characters and are packed with cool special effects, destroying the original stories. I could moan about it for ages, but i guess if i were an 18 year old boy who has never read a true classic book (or a book of any kind) about Holmes, i would have rated it a lot higher, 6-7/10 perhaps, but luckily I know it came nowhere near portraying true great stories and characters, so it was a huge disappointment to me. I wonder what my dear Stephen Fry (big fan of Holmes/Doyle) would think of this atrocity

I have only 1 review published, out of 4 I wrote for IMDb, so this probably won't see the light of day anyway, but for all those with a bit of brain in them, avoid this, if you have any respect for the original great books/characters

To be absolutely objective though (hence 2/10, instead of 1/10), the visuals, the action movie setup, Guy Ritchie's usual fun bits and the cast, it's OK :), but the stories were raped and completely re-interpreted to get a hit at box office. awful, simply awful, made me completely rethink my liking of Guy's movies