Brainy, but stuffy. Edwardian. Never appearing in public without his Inverness overcoat. Debonair, but sexlessly so. Oh yes, occasionally he would shield a gun and leap out of carriages to grab the bad guy. This is how we liked our leading Hollywood man in the 1930s and 1940s. But not anymore.

The image of the time-less character gets a complete makeover in the movie of same name, “Sherlock Holmes” directed by Guy Ritchie and slated for release in November 2009. This is how a scene shot from the movie in December last year goes. In a filthy, dark labyrinth of rooms (Doesn’t this setting badly need a makeover too?) below the streets of the East End, Sherlock Holmes was solving a case. That is, Robert Downey Jr., playing Holmes in the film was engaged in hand-to-hand, foot-to-stomach combat with a very big and very bad villain (Robert Maillet). Bam! Pow! Ouch! Imagine – a Sherlock Holmes who would even appear in a scene without his shirt on (Just the perfect moment to admire Downey’s sculpted abs)!

What won’t change is this. Holmes will still be smarter than everyone on this planet, and will still be able to deduce whole life stories from the tiniest speck of dust on a shoe. But he will do those things as a man of action, a chaser, shooter and basher of criminals. And that we would love to wait and watch!!

Via : International Herald Tribune