I spent a little time on the "Sherlock Holmes" set last year, my last big visit for Ain't It Cool News, which made sense, as I used the handle "Moriarty" for over a decade. 

If you want to read about my time on the set, you can read part one, or part two, both with a fair amount of detail about what to expect from the film, including descriptions of stuff you can see now for yourself in the trailer.

Having read the script, met the cast, spoken to the director and the producers, and having also seen several sequences in rough-cut, it was obvious to me that the film plans to pay strict homage to the original Arthur Conan Doyle short stories while also using details that are just suggested or mentioned in those stories to goose things up a bit and make them justthatmuch more blockbustery.  It's a big ambition for one of the most recognizable fictional characters in the world, and if it works, then Robert Downey Jr. becomes a two-franchise threat.

That enough of a comeback for you, Hollywood?

[more after the jump]




What I find most interesting today is what I'm going to call the "Jeffrey Wells phenomenon," where people are looking at the trailer, deciding based on what they see that it's a complete rape of the character and the ideas of Arthur Conan Doyle, and then loudly complaining about it on the internet.  Now, I know... this is the first time in history that anyone has ever signed onto the internet and loudly complained about something while being wildly misinformed.  But still...

Yes, there's a big broad sense of humor at work here.  That's not a surprise.  The chemistry I saw on-set between Downey and Law was ridiculous and relaxed and engaged.  I bought them as friends.  And Ritchie seems to me to be a man with a mission right now.  He's got a lot to prove, and he seems to not only know it but welcome it.

Obviously, this is just a tease, our first look at the tone and the world and the characters themselves, but I think it's going to start a real buzz for the film when people see it in front of "Terminator: Salvation" this weekend.  And by the time Robert Downey Jr. finishes charming everyone's ass off on the talk show circuit this fall, selling this and "Iron Man 2," we're probably looking at one of the biggest films of the holidays season.


