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The best surprise behind Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes is its ultimate faithfulness to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s titular detective.

While the new film is certainly more action oriented than previous iterations–there’s very little of Basil Rathbone’s tweedy Victorian here– it gets the intellectual and physical energy of Holmes right. Despite a few out-of-place cgi sequences and an over-eager mystery plot, the movie works as the kind of pulpy adventures Doyle made famous.

Downey’s Holmes is brasher, more cock-sure and physically imposing than his cinematic predecessors but his interpretation is in many ways more accurate to the Bakerstreet detective. Holmes boxing and using a martial arts prowess to defeat adversaries is not an extreme departure but a return to details that Doyle himself included as part of Sherlock’s make-up. He was trained in both street-fighting and various mixed martial-arts as was popular in the London of his time. In the film, this fact is used as an excuse to provide us with sequences where a buff Downey participates in grueling and exciting battles. It would be easy to dismiss them as a cheap decision to make a more mainstream popcorn film, but in truth they add a spice that the script doesn’t provide.

The mystery and the deduction associated with Holmes is on display for sure, but the screenplay hammers the details together with just a little too much modern flourish. The villain–Lord Blackwood(Mark Strong)–is a rather generic blackhat who has a sinister plan of epic scale that he wishes to rain down upon London at large. He suits the picture fine, but there’s no real reason why he needs to exist on such a grand, ‘James Bond’ style scale. Even Holmes favorite nemesis, Moriarity, was a master criminal with a sense of modest goals and means. Blackwood’s ultimate plan veers away from the personal drawing-room cases that Holmes excelled at and moves towards a kind of ‘world hangs in the balance’ verve that just doesn’t fit the tone.

There are also just one too many action scenes and towards the end Ritchie is trying to drive the story home with pure spectacle when we would just as soon follow the characters through a few more twists and turns and brilliant detective work.

What is working for the film, and what makes it such a joy to watch, is the strength of the casting and the chemistry that Downey and Law have as Holmes and Watson. They exist originally as a slightly antiquated buddy comedy team until the real story gets underway .Then,  Holmes fastidious, addictive nature starts to take over and Watson must step in and ground him, adding the stabilizing influence that the genius requires to bring the case home.

The riffing Downey does in the second half of the script, making the detective a steely-eyed wild card, adds much to the film’s humorous and playful tone. This tone isn’t out of place in Holmes and Law’s Watson strikes the right notes as a man who isn’t so much second fiddle, but rather the only fiddle capable of allowing Holme’s violin to play as it needs to. Jude has been doing great work in film for decades but his special gift here is knowing when to reign Downey the actor in and when to do the same for Holmes the character via Watson’s fussy, organized doctor. This pair could have driven the film even in the face of a weak supporting cast.

Instead, Ritchie populates the movie with several faces that will be recognizable to those who have read Sherlock’s original adventures. Among them, Rachel McAdams gets the most screentime as Irene Adler, who has the special distinction of being the only character to ever fully outwit Holmes, and the movie adds, win his heart. McAdams is just fine but she’s not quite got the right fire in her eyes or poise to come off as an equal for Downey. The character may have literary precedent but this iteration isn’t doing much aside from existing as one of the two females strategically placed to divert audience attention from the overly gay habits that Ritchie lays on Holmes and Watson. Ultimately, it’s supposed to be played like snarky married-couple grousing but a few times it just doesn’t work  and there is little subtlety applied in the more pointed jokes.

Sherlock Holmes may not make many fans who already adore the book version of the great detective, but as a holiday adventure and a new take on a classic, it’s more than worthy. If you are in the mood for a pulpy mystery, the choice is elementary. Holmes is a case worth taking.

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