Last week I saw Avatar. Tonight I saw Sherlock Holmes. And all that stuff about Avatar changing cinema forever – well here’s one thing it changed. I can’t stand watching XBox-level CGI in the cinema anymore. And Avatar has spoiled me for it. And there’s a lot of panoramas showing off Victorian London, specifically the Tower Bridge being built, lots of shots across the Thames and the big ship-in-the-docks scene. But I feel like pressing Start.

And yes, this is a different Holmes than we’ve seen before. The producers took the “Holmes knows martial arts” line and ran with it. Actually they hailed a carriage and told the driver not to spare the horses. This is Action Holmes along with Action Watson. Any excuse for a fight, he takes it, with a slappy fighting style as he concocts plans to take his assailant out which we see in slow motion and then see again all speeding up again as he executes his plan to perfection. Which you may recognise from Kurosawa’s Red Beard.

What other influences are here? Well, Holmes does fight with an impeccably upper class English accent from Downey which does rather put one in mind of Viz Comic’s Raffles, The Gentleman Thug;

and a touch of Midnighter;

Hell, they said it was all based on a graphic novel, right?

The question is can Robert Downey Jr wrap all that silliness, contradiction, baggage and expectation up in a convincing and engaging character as he did with Iron Man?

Ah no. Sorry, but you just don’t see or believe the intelligence here. The physicality, the action, yes, but at no point did I believe that this man was concocting the observations and lines coming out of his mouth. Ditto for Jude Law as Watson, at no point did I feel the drive of the man to keep going back to Holmes. Oh it was shown, repeatedly but it was never convincing. And oh dear, Rachel McAdams as Irene Adler, I think Bleeding Cool’s version was more convincing. It all felt a bit lads and ladettes, and while I’d have been happy seeing these folk sat round a table working out how to make some money to save a pub being taking over by criminal landlords, as the great detective team taking down a masonic conspiracy – no.

Oh yes, the Masonic conspiracy. Except you’re not allowed to call them masons, so most of the iconography changes. Although it is obviously still the masons. Except even then the conspiracy is from an evil infiltration amongst their ranks, with Mark Strong really needing a moustache to twiddle along with his dark robes to emphasise his naughtiness. It all gets a bit LXG and steampunk around here which is a bit annoying frankly. And I like steampunk.

And the House Of Lords totally reminded me of the Parliament scene in The Comic Strip Presents: Strike – and hell, it’s not like the House Of Lords actually had any real power by then, but they are portrayed as the true power in the land.

So what’s good and what works? Well, Eddie Marsan is sensational as Inspector Lestrade. Every inch the policeman who does what’s best, what’s needed, and if that needs swallowing his pride, so be it. With every glance you feel the ache of his career path, to the top of his profession, only to be constantly belittled and put down by this drunkard fop. Wonderful, the highlight of the film.

Aside from the panoramas, a lot of the London they show does look very alive and real, from the market streets to Piccadilly through the docks. Though I found myself getting more involved in the signs and those details than whatever the meat puppets on the screen were up to.

And there are some fun lines, decent period detail and a sense of adrenaline. But please, slow-mo explosions with viola playing?  A fighting style akin to Monty Python’s fish slapping dance? Anachronistic references to Listen With Mother?

You know, I really wish they had based this movie on a comic book. Just the one by Reppion, Moore and Campbell, that’s all.

Rich Johnston attended a preview of Sherlock Holmes courtesy of Substance PR & Promotions. Sherlock Holmes is released on Boxing Day in the UK and on Christmas Day in the USA.