Originally Published: December 28, 2009, on 1050ESPN.com (now ESPNNewYork.com)

It is the quintessential detective story. A consulting detective from 221B Baker St. in London whose keen intellect has no match as he solves the unsolvable to try to keep streets of Victorian era London safe while having his own unique brand of fun along the way. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes is a character that resonates with people even now over 100 years since his creation. After all, he was the original CSI and we all know how popular those TV shows are. In fact, several of Holmes’ techniques concocted by Conan Doyle influenced modern crime solving techniques like finger printing and bullet printing.

In terms of popularity though, Holmes as an iconic character had quietly faded into the background noise of the modern media frenzy and passing fads. With a shortage of good ideas out in there in Hollywood, director Guy Ritchie pulled Holmes and the gang off the shelf to reintroduce them to the world with a more modern filmmaking flare and an original plot not directly based off of any of Conan Doyle’s stories.

With a little more base in the occult and the macabre than anything the original Sherlock Holmes ever had to deal with, this modern rendition starring Robert Downey Jr. as Holmes and Jude Law as Dr. Watson see the original Dynamic Duo deal with an ominous figure in a man known as Lord Blackwell, played by Mark Strong. The movie opens up with the duo breaking in and disrupting the sacrifice of a young maiden by Blackwell who is promptly arrested, thrown in jail, and then hung for his crimes. Not much of a movie if the antagonist is jailed and hung in the first ten minutes, but miraculously, Lord Blackwell rises from the grave and begins to haunt the streets of London once again, striking fear and terror into all who believe. Luckily for all of London, there is Sherlock Holmes.

As a fan of the Sherlock Holmes stories, this is a fantastic modern rendition of the timeless tales. There were a few extra explosions and fight scenes to help keep the viewers attention than were in the original stories, but more importantly, the movie flowed well for the entire 2 hours and 14 minutes. The character depictions were more true to the original stories than most media portrayals have been over the years, such as Watson being a very competent companion and not the bumbling sidekick as in several depictions, or not leaving out the details of Holmes’ persona that he was an avid boxer who got bored very easily, to the point that he would shoot the queen’s initials into his wall to help occupy his time.

Aside from the accurate character depictions (with a lot of credit going to Jude Law and Robert Downey Jr.), the story was something worthy of the originals. Although a tad much with the occult theme for the villain, the way Holmes unraveled all the clues and came to his conclusions with his deductive thinking, all the while skirting just on the edge of the law, were done in ways that would’ve made Conan Doyle proud.

My only critique with the movie was that it was done in a third person perspective. The original stories were all from the perspective of Dr. Watson and therefore told from his perspective as Watson was being trained all the while in detective work by Holmes. I think it would have been nice to see Guy Ritchie try something a little different and tell the story through the eyes of Watson instead of from the movie-standard third person.

Aside from that minor complaint though, this was a fantastic movie with superb acting from everyone involved, tremendous action, some nice light-hearted comedic moments, and an enthralling plot. The dynamic between Law and Downey Jr. was a joy to watch and the movie held your attention the whole way through and, of course, the movie’s ending left it open for a sequel. If you plan on going to the movies only once this holiday season, Sherlock Holmes should be your pick.

Sherlock Holmes starring Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law gets 4.5 out of 5.

-Ray Carsillo