Sherlock Holmes
Sherlock Holmes is a 2009 period mystery action film starring Robert Downey Jr. as the character of the same name created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The film was directed by Guy Ritchie and produced by Joel Silver, Lionel Wigram, Susan Downey, and Dan Lin. The screenplay written by Michael Robert Johnson, Anthony Peckham, and Simon Kinberg was developed from a story by Wigram and Johnson. In addition to Downey Jr. as Holmes, Jude Law portrays Dr. John Watson. The film, set in 1890, follows eccentric detective Holmes and his companion Watson attempting to foil a mysticist's plot to gain control of Britain by seemingly supernatural means. Rachel McAdams stars as Holmes' former adversary Irene Adler and Mark Strong portrays villain Lord Henry Blackwood. The film was widely released in North America on 25 December 2009, and on 26 December 2009 in the UK, Ireland, the Pacific, and the Atlantic. Sherlock Holmes received mostly positive critical reaction. The film grossed $524 million worldwide, becoming the eighth highest-grossing film of 2009. Downey won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Musical or Comedy. The film was also nominated for two Academy Awards, Best Original Score and Best Art Direction. A sequel, Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, was released in 2011, with a third film in the works to be directed by Dexter Fletcher.
There was never any magic. Only conjuring tricks. The simplest involved paying people off... like the guard who pretended to be possessed outside your cell. Your reputation and the inmates' fear did the rest. Others required more elaborate preparations... like the sandstone slab that covered your tomb.
Sherlock Holmes
You had it broken before your burial, then put back together using an adhesive. An ancient Egyptian recipe, I believe... a mixture of egg and honey... designed to be washed away by the rain. Holmes! Arranging for your father to drown in his own bathtub... required more modern science. Very clever of Reordan to find a paralytic... that was activated by the combination of copper and water... and was therefore undetectable once the bath water was drained. That migh've been a challenge for me... had he not also tested it on some unfortunate amphibians. The death of Standish was a real mystery... until you used the same compound to blow up the wharf. An odorless, tasteless flammable liquid... yet it burned with an unusual pinkish hue. Did Standish mistake it for rain as he entered the temple? All it took was a spark. A simple rigged bullet in his gun. Ingenious. Like all great performers, you saved your picce de r�sistance for the end: A chemical weapon distilled from cyanide and refined in the bellies of swine. Had it worked... your followers in Parliament would have watched unharmed... as their colleagues were dying around them. They didn't know you'd given them the antidote. Instead, they would've believed it was magic... and that you'd harnessed the ultimate power. And the world would've followed, fear being the most powerful weapon of all. You'd better hope that it's nothing more than superstition... as you performed all the rituals perfectly. The devil is due a soul, I'd say. For God's sake, Holmes, cut me loose. First, the world will see you for what you are. A fraud. Then you'll be hanged. Properly, this time. It's a long journey from here to the rope.
Sherlock Holmes