How to get very drunk, very quickly.

I have devised a drinking game for the Sherlock Holmes movie. Only you don't play it while watching the movie, you play it while reading reviews written by professional critic.

You take a shot every time the reviewer mentions the literary character, "literary legend", or fond memories of having read the original stories.

Every time the reviewer mentions something as "missing", "discarded", or otherwise absent from this movie that was not actually part of the "literary legend" but was instead part of an earlier movie, TV show, or the general public consciousness that grew out of such things, take two shots.

Every time the reviewer mentions a "departure" in the movie that is in fact taken in part or in whole from the literary canon, take three shots.

If the reviewer who has so many fond memories of the "literary legend" of Sherlock Holmes and is so eagle-eyed in spotting departures from the source material mentions that in canon Watson's eventual bride Mary Marston met the good doctor while a client of Holmes, drink everything in the house, buy the house on either side of yours and drink everything in them, too.

Note: This game is a very good way to get drunk, but not because the last rule will be invoked very often.

Thoughts on Holmes.

Okay, having shared my thoughts on professional reviews of Sherlock Holmes I feel like I should share my own review, such as it is, of the movie.

As with 90% of the movies I watch, my general thoughts amount to "I quite liked it but I wish it had been longer." In this case, though, I really quite liked it and I really wish it had been longer, because most of the specific things I dislike could have been alleviated if they had taken a bit more time with the second half.

( Cut for spoiler avoidance. )

(Sidebar: For another excellent example of a Baskervilles-type story and Sherlockian storytelling done right, I heartily recommend The Italian Secretary by Caleb Carr. It is excellent on all counts.)

( Resume Cut )