British writer/director Guy Ritchie made his name with the flashy, hyperkinetic indie gangster caper “Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels,” and followed that up with the similarly flavored “Snatch” and “RocknRolla.” Now, armed with a reported $100 million budget, Ritchie has joined the big leagues with his new film, “Sherlock Holmes.”
Predictably, this is not your father’s Sherlock Holmes. Long gone are the traditional — and easily parodied — capes, deerstalker hats and pipes. Instead, as embodied by Robert Downey Jr., the famous detective is now part intellectual sleuth, part action-hero, partnered with an equally slimmed-down and pumped-up Watson, played by Jude Law.