Guy Ritchie's bare-knuckle revisionist take on the famous sleuth SHERLOCK HOLMES gets a typical Maximum Movie Mode treatment by Warner Brothers Home Entertainment with plenty of bonus feature info branching from the director's on-screen commentary.

   

Review by Scott Weitz — March 31, 2010 — 3.5 Stars

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The game is afoot in your home theater as Warner Brothers delivers director Guy Ritchie's more-action-less-mystery interpretation of SHERLOCK HOLMES in a 2-Disc Blu-ray Combo Pack.  Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law team up and Holmes and Watson for this brawling buddy pic that dramatizes the sleuthing partnership between the literary duo which has enthralled fans for over a century. Ritchie uses the best of 21st century movie magic to faithfully recreate 1890s London and the quite unglamorous environment of the city.  Things are made even darker as Lord Blackwood (Mark Strong) attempts to rule England and eventually the world by means of black magic to control others' minds and eliminate his enemies.  The return of American adventuress Irene Adler (Rachel McAdams) only complicates Sherlock's life as the one woman who bested his keen intellect and broke his heart.

Far the portraying Holmes as an intellectual snob and utterly cerebral hero, Ritchie stamps this story with his rough-house sensibilities and gritty underworld edge which works well for this re-imagining.  Though some may find the genre-bending diversion away from Sherlock as mystery-solver a little too modernized for taste.  Certainly Downey invests the role with his Tony Stark-like personality and charm to engage audience interest, backed by the actor's renowned physical fitness to give Holmes brawn behind his brains.

Warner's 2-Disc Blu-ray Combo Pack offers plenty of SHERLOCK HOLMES viewing value including high-def Blu-ray, standard DVD and Digital Copy versions of the feature film.  The 1080p high-definition transfer of the feature leads the way in 16x9 enhanced presentation in the theatrical 1.85:1 aspect ratio for widescreen viewing, and it shows off all the digital labor to re-create dank and dangerous London just before the turn of the century.  Dark blacks are well-maintained and the high-definition image captures the grand and grimy details of Holmes' study and the crypts, prisons and back alleys he and Watson investigate to defeat Blackwood's scheme.  The DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack keeps dialogue and action clear and distinct, though the film's sound mix itself isn't the most dynamic or atmospheric we've heard, so it won't exactly put your surround system to the ultimate test.

Of greater value is Guy Ritchie's personal tour through the world and making-of SHERLOCK HOLMES in Warners' Maximum Movie Mode, a high-def hybrid of director's commentary hosted on-screen by Ritchie himself.  Standing between two screens in a virtual Victorian-designed studio, Ritchie blends his filmmaker narrative of the creative process, discussing many sequences while they play or freezing the action to address specific aspects of the production.  One of Ritchie's early concepts to pitch his take on the film is Holmes-o-vision, adapting the director's love of slow-motion fighting with Sherlock's cerebral strategies, in effect visually allowing viewers into his mind to defeat his opponent in theory before he does physically.  It's an evolution of Ritchie's long-practiced style channeled through character which was one of the brighter points in this reinterpretation of a literary and cinematic legend.

Warner Brothers has made great use of Maximum Movie Mode in their Blu-ray releases over the last year-plus, and the satisfaction it delivers depends entirely on the viewer's definition of and expectations for HD bonus features.  Having a director give real-time commentary on-screen as the film plays to the side can either be a vast improvement over audio-only commentary, or it can seem intrusive — but then again, simply watch the feature if you don't want intrusions on the film.  Ritchie states his intentions clearly if not in a wildly entertaining manner, as he shows much more personality in the bonus featurettes than in his MMM appearance.  Viewers might also wonder if he achieved all the character-based innovations he and Downey intended as they discuss their renewal of the Sherlock Holmes legacy.

Blu-ray technology also allows branching Focus Point featurettes on specific topics which jump out of the film narrative at cued points to examine a subject in greater depth within its story context.  The six Focus Point featurettes cover a variety of topics:

• Drawbridges to Doilies: Designing a Late Victorian London [production design]
• Not a Deerstalker Cap in Sight [updating iconic Holmes for a new era and story]
• Ba-ritsu: A Tutorial [a primer on creating Holmes' unique martial arts style]
• Elementary English: Perfecting Sherlock's Accent [Downey's linguistic talents]
• The One That Got Away [reintroducing Irene Adler as the woman in Sherlock's life]
• Powers of Observation and Deduction [Linking a new story to Holmes history]
• The Sherlockians [the society of Holmes fans gather in New York]
• Future Past [visual effects re-create the bygone vistas of 18090s London]

When the Focus Point sidebar ends, viewing of the feature resumes.  This option can also be watched separately outside the film by selecting some or all of the Focus Point featurettes from the Bonus Features menu, which is handy if you're aiming at the making-of extras first upon viewing.  FilmEdge often gets the feeling that combining Maximum Movie Mode with these Focus Points ends up skimping on a larger pool of available bonus material by condensing it into a streaming viewing experience, but all put together they offer sufficient value for a single Blu-ray disc release — and we appreciate that WB breaks out these Focus Points for individual viewing which offers great flexibility to viewers. 

Still, the bonus features are not yet exhausted, as Disc One also offers key Blu-ray exclusives including: Picture-in-Picture Storyboard Comparisons to scenes, several movie-synched Still Galleries and a pop-up Timeline of Holmes and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle history.  All of these are available only in MMM viewing and not separately from the Bonus Features menu, but likely that's when they'll be used.  Generally speaking, FilmEdge finds inclusion of Storyboard Comparisons of dwindling appeal in these releases, especially since their PIP appearance during scenes are both tiny and fleeting, offering little opportunity to actually study them side-by-side if you're really into the pre-production art form.  Such a feature seems to be an easy fit for Blu-ray technology by now rather than a greatly useful tool to learn more about the making of such films.  A point for debate, albeit a minor one since Warners includes it regardless.

The final bonus treat is Behind The Story - Sherlock Holmes: Reinvented, a 14-minute standalone featurette covering the larger effort by Ritchie, Downey, story by/producer Lionel Wigram et al to reinterpret the venerable fiction detective for both a modern audience and honed to the director's bare-knuckle aesthetic.  It's a solid featurette, largely told in on-set interviews and b-roll cameras on-location during production which repeats little from the other bonus features and gives a good fly-on-the-wall view of HOLMES in the making.

Disc Two offers the standard DVD edition of the feature film without ANY bonus features — no doubt a disappointment to those who haven't joined the HD era which is slowly being enforced by studios in just this increasingly common tactic.  But here's the real surprise: the now-standard Digital Copy of the film (also embedded on the DVD Disc Two) has an expiration date!  You must load your Digital Copy on the portable computer/player of your choice before the offer expires on March 28, 2011, after which the Digital Copy unlocking code will be disabled.  This is a somewhat surprising move by the studio which really narrows WB's home entertainment focus on Blu-ray's future and limiting your viewing options severely in any other format, despite you buying the three-format Combo Pack.  To pull a quote from Guy Ritchie's previous film entitled SNATCH: "That's a bit strong, isn't it?"  FilmEdge will watch with interest to see how this strict strategy pays off and if it becomes standard or an abandoned policy in the near future.

Overall, if you liked SHERLOCK HOLMES in theaters, then this Blu-Ray Combo Pack will suit you well with an ample (if not overabundant) supply of bonus features to entertain those of us who enjoy knowing more about these films.  The bare-bones second disc reduces our rating of this release since the gutted DVD version and end-date effectiveness of the Digital Copy lessen the overall value of the set for buyers, though sadly such things are increasingly the norm by several studios' home entertainment offerings.  Viewers get good value at the Blu-ray level, and the experience should whet fans' appetites for greater mystery ahead as Holmes should finally confront his nemesis Professor Moriarty in a future sequel.