The only problem I can see with the movie is that Sherlock Holmes the character will not make it through Downey the persona, and that the emphasis on action fails to distinguish it from any other buddy action movie.
Didn't see the first one, don't know if I'll try the second, since Downey is the kind of actor you either love or hate, since he can't seem to truly immerse himself in a role. Sort of like the recent version of Nicholas Cage.
Seriously? Hunh. I've always found Downey to be an exceptional chameleon as a character actor. Have you seen him in
Chaplin? Amazing work. If his recent fame has come from characters that reflect his off-screen persona, that's because the characters are being chosen and written for him with that persona in mind. Yes, there are some broad similarities between Downey's Holmes, Downey's Tony Stark, and Downey's media image, but I think he managed to make Holmes and Stark extremely distinct individuals (and he was definitely drawing on Jeremy Brett for his version of Holmes).
And isn't Sherlock Holmes supposed to be more of a sleuth than action hero? Meh.
A common misconception. Holmes was a Victorian gentleman, so naturally he was expected to be able to handle himself in a fight. In the canonical stories, he was an expert boxer (good enough to have gone pro if he'd chosen) and an expert fencer, he was skilled in a martial art called bartitsu (and used martial arts to defeat Moriarty), and is often shown taking on enemies with a pistol or a riding crop. He was definitely a man of action as well as thought.
Remember, the Holmes stories were not written for some intellectual elite. They were popular fiction in a major magazine of the era (in fact, Conan Doyle found them embarrassingly lowbrow), and audiences of the time expected action and adventure just as much as they do today. Most of the Holmes stories are actually titled "The Adventure of the..." whatever.
The Downey movie (and presumably its successor) did exaggerate the action to fit the modern idiom of the American summer blockbuster, true. But allowing for that, it was a very faithful and respectful adaptation. It drew heavily from the Doyle canon; it just played up aspects of that canon that prior adaptations have often played down. And that makes it fresh and intriguing. The filmmakers have found an innovative way of telling an authentic Holmes adaptation. And that's really what you're supposed to do in a new adaptation -- not just copy what's been done before, which is pointless, but to find a new layer of meaning in the work.
