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Sherlock Holmes
EMAILPRINTWarner Bros. Pictures

Mixed or average reviews
Based on 34 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 180 votes
Read user comments
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Movie Info
Genre(s): Action | Adventure | Crime | Drama | Mystery | Suspense/Thriller
Written by:
Michael Johnson
Anthony Peckham
Guy Ritchie
Directed by: Guy Ritchie
Release Date:
Theatrical: December 25, 2009
DVD: March 30, 2010
Running Time: minutes, Color
Origin: UK | Australia | USA
Summary
RATING: PG-13 for intense sequences of violence and action, some startling images and a scene of suggestive material
Starring Robert Downey Jr., Jude Law, Rachel McAdams, Mark Strong, Eddie Marsan, and Kelly Reilly
Sherlock Holmes has made his reputation finding the truth at the heart of the most complex mysteries. With the aid of Dr. John Watson, his trusted ally, the renowned "consulting detective" is unequaled in his pursuit of criminals of every stripe, whether relying on his singular powers of observation, his remarkable deductive skills, or the blunt force of his fists. But now a storm is gathering over London, a threat unlike anything that Holmes has ever confronted...and just the challenge he's looking for. (Warner Bros.)
Also On The Web: Internet Movie Database Official Studio Site
What The Critics Said
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
New York Daily News Joe Neumaier
Downey has a winning take on Holmes: He's always on.
Read Full Review >The Onion (A.V. Club) Keith Phipps
This is very much a Sherlock Holmes movie for the blockbuster era.
Read Full Review >Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
The less I thought about Sherlock Holmes, the more I liked "Sherlock Holmes." Yet another classic hero has been fed into the f/x mill, emerging as a modern superman.
Read Full Review >Boston Globe Ty Burr
It pleases me to report, then, that Downey brings his brain, his wit, and his gift for intelligent underplaying, even as he understands he has been hired to play Sherlock Holmes, action hero.
Read Full Review >Premiere Nick Starkey
Hey, remember “fun”? If you’re sick of the apocalypse and tortured anti-heroes, then you need to see Sherlock Holmes. It’s a blast from start to finish.
Read Full Review >Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan
There's a mystery at the heart of Sherlock Holmes, and it's not the one the great master of detection has been called on to solve. It's how a film that has so many good things going for it has turned out to be solid but not spectacular.
Read Full Review >Variety Todd McCarthy
Ritchie has never worked on a scale anything approaching this before and, while some of the directorial affectations are distracting, he keeps the action humming.
Read Full Review >The New Yorker David Denby
Challenged by Downey’s energy, Jude Law, who often seems aimless in his movies, comes fully up to speed. He’s virile and quick-witted, and his Watson, if not Holmes’s equal in brainpower, comes close to him in daring. Their repartee evokes the banter of lovers in a screwball comedy; they flirt outrageously but chastely.
Read Full Review >Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern
The movie as a whole is clever, and conspicuously overwrought. But Mr. Downey's performance is elegantly wrought; he's as quick-witted as his legendary character, and blithely funny in the lovers' spats—all right, the mystery-lovers' spats—that Holmes keeps having with Jude Law's witty Dr. Watson.
Read Full Review >The New York Times A.O. Scott
There are worse things than loutish, laddish cool, and as a series of poses and stunts, Sherlock Holmes is intermittently diverting.
Read Full Review >Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov
Here's hoping that younger members of the audience will seek out Conan Doyle's original stories to further explore Holmes' official amanuensis, Dr. John Watson, whose brilliant case studies regarding his friend, roommate, and fellow rationalist are the stuff dreams are made of.
Read Full Review >Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman
Sherlock Holmes is an odd amalgam, a top-heavy light entertainment that keeps throwing things at you and doesn't seem too concerned with whether they stick.
Read Full Review >New Orleans Times-Picayune Mike Scott
Ritchie and company spend too much time being cute and not enough time being clever, resulting in a one-dimensional comic-book version of Doyle's detectives.
Read Full Review >USA Today Claudia Puig
Sherlock Holmes has been reimagined with fighting skills as potent as his intellectual acumen.
Read Full Review >St. Louis Post-Dispatch Joe Williams
The result is only half as hip as hoped. Yes, this Holmes is leaner and meaner, and Watson (Jude Law) is nearly his equal. But there’s still something fussy about the result, as if bobbies had broken up the party at 11:59.
Read Full Review >ReelViews James Berardinelli
The reason Sherlock Holmes fails at least as often as it succeeds is because more effort and attention was lavished upon the concept than upon the script. Given a worthy story, Downey's Holmes might have been memorable. Here, he's an interesting character in search of a worthwhile story.
Read Full Review >Empire William Thomas
A fun, action-packed reintroduction to Conan Doyle's classic characters. Part Two should provide more in the way of scope.
Read Full Review >NPR Bob Mondello
In short, Ritchie's come up with precisely what you'd expect of him — a pumped-up, anachronistically modern Sherlock Holmes designed for the ADD crowd. Expect a sequel. Or six.
Read Full Review >New York Magazine David Edelstein
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.
Read Full Review >The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Liam Lacey
Guy Ritchie's Holmes reboot feels both too complicated and too elementary, dear Watson.
Read Full Review >Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea
With a clamorous soundtrack and a whirl of elaborate chases and busily choreographed fight scenes, this is Sherlock Holmes with Attention Deficit Disorder.
Read Full Review >Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy
Despite some arresting visual flourishes and Downey’s inherent likeability, it’s nearly incoherent both as cinema and as story. No, this isn’t your grandfather’s or your father’s Sherlock Holmes, but if theirs featured Basil Rathbone or Jeremy Brett in the lead, it was better by miles.
Read Full Review >San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle
Guy Ritchie is the worst screenwriter in the world, but, to be fair, he is not the worst director. He is only the worst director of the people who actually get to make movies.
Read Full Review >Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez
Not even Sherlock Holmes could make much sense out of the overplotted, murky mess that is "Sherlock Holmes," although Arthur Conan Doyle's legendarily brainy detective would probably never buy a ticket to a movie as elephant-footed as this one.
Read Full Review >Rolling Stone Peter Travers
Ritchie is all about the whooshing and headbanging, leaving no space between Holmes' words to savor their meaning. Downey is irresistible. The movie, not so much.
Read Full Review >Village Voice J. Hoberman
As over-emphatic as one might expect from the ham-fisted Guy Ritchie, this resurrection of the world's most famous detective is a dank, noisy affair.
Read Full Review >Christian Science Monitor Peter Rainer
This is certainly the grubbiest Holmes in movie history.
Read Full Review >The Hollywood Reporter Kirk Honeycutt
Sherlock Holmes goes wrong in many ways except for one -- at the boxoffice.
Read Full Review >Time Out New York Joshua Rothkopf
This is the ultimate sin of the film, generically helmed by lad-auteur Guy Ritchie: Logic seems to be thrown out the window in order to make room for clashes on a partially completed Tower Bridge. It’s way too elementary.
Read Full Review >Chicago Tribune Michael Phillips
It's a serious drag to see how Ritchie has turned Holmes and Dr. Watson into a couple of garden-variety thugs.
Read Full Review >New York Post Kyle Smith
Sherlock Holmes dumbs down a century-old synonym for intelligence with S&M gags, witless sarcasm, murky bombast and twirling action-hero moves that belong in a ninja flick.
Read Full Review >Washington Post Michael O'Sullivan
This "Holmes" is just about as silly as it awesome. 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.
Read Full Review >Chicago Reader J.R. Jones
The very idea of handing him over to professional lad Guy Ritchie (who directed Snatch, Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels), to be played as a punch-throwing quipster by Robert Downey Jr., is so profoundly stupid one can only step back in dismay.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 6.6 (out of 10) based on 180 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
PD gave it a10:
Excellent movie. i just simply loved the story narration and the thrill. awaiting the sequel.
Nerijus D. gave it a4:
Not interesting at all. And I hate unrealistic films.
Jonlun D gave it a7:
Very good but felt a little long by 3/4 of the way through.
James H. gave it an8:
Sherlock Holmes brings more than a few quick street fighting scenes that brings some critiques to give an automatic hate to the movie. The use of not your fathers Holmes is an excuse for those who can not get past their own childish nature. The movie itself brings us an interesting take on not just Holmes, but the times he lived in. To chuck it aside because its not him sitting there for 30 minutes smoking his pipe then coming up with the answer is to insult Doyle.
Billy S. gave it a7:
If you go in to a movie with low expectations, you'll more than likely be surpized. As was the case for Sherlock Holmes. Don't get me wrong, Guy Ritchie taking on a literary masterpiece is no way the same as Kubrick and The Shining, but Ritchie has incorporated Holmes' intelligence with his usual over the top action pieces and made a much better-than-expected entertaining film. Downey and Law play Holmes and Watson with humor and a little gay innuendo, but the way Ritchie has Holmes analyse his fights in slow motion first is a great advantage to all the commotion that follows. All in all, well worth the price of admission.
Josep P gave it a3:
Downey. Jr, even he does not believe in anything happening in the movie,is brilliant. Jude Law Ok. The rest is only BORING. But well, is Guy Ritchie so, what did you expected, a good movie?
kg m gave it a5:
This certainly isn’t your grandfather’s Sherlock holmes and one can only surmise that they utilize that name as a jumping off point to create a story without much thought as to paying homage to Sir Doyle and his books. The story itself is alright, but what I prized more was the imagination and visionary aspects of the movie—those are quite good.
