Sherlock Holmes is a mystery-action film adaptation of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's fictional masterpiece of the same title. The movie hit of 2009 was directed by Guy Ritchie starring Robert Downey J.r as Holmes and Jude Law as his ever-loyal sidekick Dr. Watson. The movie is set in a 19th century London where Holmes is a famous detective. He is known for his logical reasoning, disguising ability and forensic science skills used in solving difficult cases. One of the baddest villains in the film is Lord Blackwood portrayed by Mark Strong. The real mystery in the story is how Blackwood was able to rise from the dead and uses his so-called black magic abilities to be an instrument of destruction.
In 19th century England, superstitious belief about magic is still an idea that people would immediately bite into. Technology is just beginning to emerge during that period and as a result, people are stunned to witness unexplainable occurrences that are actually made by science. This is when the idea that magic is just science that not many people don't understand. This is also the point of Homes's investigations since himself is also a man of science and his dog knows it more than anyone else (Holmes's dog has always been an unwilling victim of his weird experiments). Guy Richie has created a perfect plot arrangement to illustrate how Holmes explored the space between science and magic. Holmes does not believe in magic, but knowing that Blackwood was able to escape death persuaded him to dig deeper into his investigation.
In the movie Holmes followed his usual thinking of "how does this thing work" and explored the possibilities of unseen causes and the revealed effects. The director, Guy Richie was able to effectively explore the balance of science and magic in the movie. One instance is before Blackwood was executed, he mentioned that he will come back. In a realistic point of view, the dead cannot simply spring back to life. Blackwood was able to do so, but not because he was resurrected using black magic as what most people believe, but because he used a particular drug concoction then replaced his supposedly remains in the coffin with a decoy.
While Dr. Watson is almost convinced that Blackwoods resurrection is theoretically possible because of the information about a man in India who predicted his own death precisely up to what bullet will kill him. There was a scene in the movie where Holmes and Watson raided a safe-house near the port area and found evidence of an abandoned scientific laboratory. There are a lot of contradicting elements of science and magic found in that particular laboratory because there are traces of phosphorus in the air inside the room, diagrams, dissected frogs and scientific calculations all over the walls. There are also several scientific instruments in the room such as beakers, glass cylinders and more. However, there are also a few documents and sorcery-ritual symbols on a sheet of paper found on the desk inside the room.
The climax of the movie is when Holmes have finally unravelled the truth about Blackwood's "black magic". Blackwood revealed himself to a political gathering and persuades them to believe that he possesses the supernatural power to dominate the world. However, his magic was revealed to be a chemical weapon composed of cyanide placed in a machine controlled by an electromagnetic remote. Guy Richie was ingenious in balancing the different elements in the movie to bring out the concepts of the two contradicting subjects of magic and science.
