I would classify it as obscene.
They pretty much dug up Holmes's corpse and bum raped it and wiped on Doyle's stories.

Irene Adler was NOT an action heroine. Mary Morstan did NOT throw wine in Holmes's face. Holmes was NOT known for his way with the ladies, but was an ascetic.

Bah.
( Wanderer, Mon 3 May 2010, 21:39, 2 replies)

"Ascetic", is it?
1) a person who dedicates his or her life to a pursuit of contemplative ideals and practices extreme self-denial or self-mortification for religious reasons.

2) a person who leads an austerely simple life, esp. one who abstains from the normal pleasures of life or denies himself or herself material satisfaction.

3) (in the early Christian church) a monk; hermit.

Which one of those definitions of "ascetic" allows for a heavy-duty cocaine and morphine habit?
(gordonjcp, Mon 3 May 2010, 21:53, closed)

Doyle was the one who labeled him that.
I don't recall anything on morphine, but the cocaine habit was mentioned specifically as his way of dealing with boredom.
( Wanderer, Mon 3 May 2010, 22:03, closed)

That would be number 2.
Holmes doesn't accept more money than he needs to live for his work when he could easily command a fee of millions, he chooses his cases by their interest not by their ease or benefits, he does not socialise except for Watson and they seem to mainly socialise when working on a case, he lives alone in his flat without a partner, he is never seen to have a lover although he does fall in love.

Despite his cocaine addiction I think it's fair to say Holmes denies himself material satisfaction and abstains from the normal pleasures of life.
(Hippo_of_Doom, Tue 4 May 2010, 2:37, closed)

True that. Especially considering his "addiction" usually disappears the moment he gets a new case which interests him.
(Captain Skippy pooed in a bag and left it on your doorstep, Tue 4 May 2010, 6:56, closed)

Sounds like the behaviour of an aspie to me.
To be fair to Guy Ritchie, what kind of person other than someone with Asperger's Syndrome has the kind of eye for small details that Holmes displays? No one I know.
(Vlad the Inhaler forgot his password, Tue 4 May 2010, 8:04, closed)

Not so much
I actually thought the film did a rather nice job of getting some elements of the stories in there, though I was unconvinced by RDJ as Holmes. Not tall and thin enough.

On the Aspergers bit though, it's pretty clear in the stories/novel that Holmes is capable of deep emotion and also of expressing it in times of need (The Three Garridebs spring to mind) and that his way of thinking and logicalness have been imposed on himself and he has trained himself. It never sounded like Aspergers to me, more like a sort of mania, or alternatively some sort of trauma
( Amberl was stripey and dominated Europe, Tue 4 May 2010, 12:18, closed)

Yeah, and Watson seemed more in awe of Holmes and less flustered
although the books do mention his frustration. I never understood how evenly Watson took Holmes appearing after being dead for three years. I would have expected a few more epithets, or perhaps a nice jab to the nose like the movie.

Artistic license, I suppose.
( BrokenCoccyx doesn't mind if you grope on, Tue 4 May 2010, 15:59, closed)