As with most of Hollywood "blockbuster" cinema these days, the film suffers from an inescapable, one-dimensionalism. It is all about style; the cinematography, costuming, digital sets and effects, etc. are all top notch. As well, the quippy dialogue betrays a certain shallow, slick stylism that the script suffers from in general. However, far from being a clever distillation of the best of Holmes and Watson, the film instead suffers throughout from a post-modernistic reductionism that flattens our heroes into effete, world-weary caricatures of their literary counterparts.

In a nutshell, for Holmes enthusiasts particularly, the film--in spite of the stylishly depicted action sequences--is dull and soulless, almost as if bored with its own pointlessness. Telling of our times, perhaps, but far from great storytelling.