Sherlock Holmes (2009)

Director Guy Ritchie may have outgrown making stylish gangster flicks, but his talent for creatively smashing his way through British culture is very much alive and intact. Taking the grandfather of all super-detectives and giving him a heaping dose of modern cynicism may not do anything for purists of character continuity, but it makes something damn entertaining regardless. That it's the professional motormouth himself, Robert Downey Jr., as the man himself just makes things all the more fun. Meanwhile Ritchie's hyper detailed editing style lends itself perfectly to such a meticulous character. Series purists will of course lament the loss of his cocaine addiction and implications of invisible friends, or that he's more of a man of action than a dour riddle-solver. But this is a film that is aiming for pure, breezy, popcorn-munching entertainment, carefree and pleasantly complicated. About the only real knock against this film are the almost universally terrible CG effects. If you can get past that little tweak, and don't mind a few character liberties, there's very little to dislike in this hyperactive reimagining.

8 out of 10.