Jude Law as Dr John Watson, Robert Downey Jr as Holmes, and Rachel McAdams as Irene Adler Set in 1891, the film revolves around Holmes and Watson stopping a conspiracy to destroy Britain. The film opens with Holmes apprehending the murderous cult leader Lord Blackwood (Mark Strong), who promises he will return from the dead and exact his revenge as he is being led to the gallows. One way or another this is going to disappoint (to put it lightly) a great deal of Holmes/Doyle fanboys, but as an existing fan myself I actually find myself anticipating this quite a bit.
There is a pretty big UK influence on it. Guy Ritchie is directing, pretty much all of the cast besides Downey and McAdams are British, and a good deal of it was filmed here. I'm not so hot on Ritchie but given what the film is I'd pick him over plenty of other directors.
He's supposed to have been pretty good as the title character in Chaplin, that being the case it's already proven.
Is it just me or does Jude Law as Dr. Watson look very wrong? Unless they turn him small and fat, I don't see it.
The description of his size varies, I think. At points (mainly in earlier stories) he's supposed to be more in shape while later on he gets bigger. I'm guessing at some point the director of one of the adaptations must have depicted him as being barrell-shaped and middle-aged, and that became the stereotype. He was supposed to have been in the army as a surgeon before being discharged, so it's probably accurate to say that, at least earlier on, he would have been in pretty decent condition physically.