Two of the most popular portrayals of Sherlock Holmes are those of Robert Downey Jr. and Benedict Cumberbatch, but who did it best?
The Great Detective was created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and made his first appearance in a Study in Scarlet in 1887,
and his popularity skyrocketed thanks to a series of short stories published in The Strand Magazine, beginning in 1891 with A Scandal in Bohemia.
Sherlock Holmes got a total of four novels and 56 short stories, and he has been adapting to all types of media for over 100 years.
Many actors have played different versions of the famous detective on stage, in TV shows, and in movies, each giving the character their own style, and recent adaptations have made Holmes and his cases popular again. First was Guy Ritchie’s film, simply titled “Sherlock Holmes,” released in 2009, with Robert Downey Jr. as the title character and Jude Law as Doctor John Watson.
The film got a sequel in 2011, Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, which featured the famous death of the detective at the Reichenbach Falls in Switzerland, with him making a surprise appearance at the end, leaving the door wide open for a third movie.
In 2010, the BBC brought its own version of Sherlock Holmes to television in the series Sherlock, created by Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffat.
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With modern-day London as the main setting, Sherlock adapted some of the detective’s most famous cases and memorable characters to the present day,
giving some freshness to the character. Sherlock had Benedict Cumberbatch as the lead, accompanied by Martin Freeman as John Watson,
and became very popular with Sherlock Holmes fans while also building its very own fanbase.
Both Downey Junior and Cumberbatch’s performances were a hit with critics and viewers, but in the end, who is the better Sherlock Holmes?
To answer that, there are a couple of important aspects to consider.
Let’s dive into Robert Downey Junior and Benedict Cumberbatch’s abilities as Sherlock Holmes to find out who was the better Sherlock Holmes
Robert Downey Junior Abilities as Sherlock Holmes
Number 1: Genius Level of Intellect
Holmes’s abilities lay mainly in his skills of deduction and his intellect. An exceptionally intelligent individual with a great amount of enigma, Sherlock Holmes is quite possibly the most intelligent man alive and proved to be clever enough to ultimately surpass James Moriarty,
managing to beat him in their chess contest and outfox and take down the mentally ordinately agile professor of Cambridge. He is incredibly observant,
noticing the tiniest details, that most would not pay attention to.
Number 2: Prediction
Holmes’ intelligence allows him to plan attacks and deduce (often correctly) exactly how a scuffle will play out.
He can even predict exactly how events took place, though sometimes his adversaries can jumble up the clues to misdirect him. This rarely works on him.
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Number 3: Master Tactician
His advanced intellect allows him to perform various acts and set up traps in various places based on his accurate predictions.
This involves jamming up machine guns and setting off truck bombs. He even carefully timed the throw and rescue of Lady Watson.
Holmes’s strategic aptitude can make him extremely unpredictable,
as he displayed the willingness to go at great costs to carry out any complex and dangerous plan he had thought upon and he even seemed to always think many steps ahead and form backup plans in case his original plan failed,
as evidenced when he simply and calmly blinded Moriarty after realizing a fistfight would be futile, catching him completely off guard.
Number 4: Expert Scientist
Earlier in the film, we see Holmes use the alkaloid on Watson’s dog Gladstone. Even on the train, when Sherlock was dying John Watson brought him back with some kind of vegetable alkaloid which mimics the action of adrenaline.
The syringes filled with the alkaloid were a gift from Holmes to Watson on the occasion of the latter’s wedding.
Number 5: Expert Deceiver
Holmes displayed considerable skill as a con artist, even being able to steal the highly perceptive Moriarty’s notebook from him without Moriarty even suspecting it and later managing to exploit being pinned down by Moriarty to put in another notebook to continue the deception.
Number 6: Expert Violinist
Holmes can play the violin.
Number 7: Master Martial Artist
He is also shown to be very proficient in many known martial arts and boxing and to have an aggressive, if not slippery, fighting style.
His style also involves psychological warfare. He is a very adept boxer and was able to hold his own,
overwhelm and defeat opponents much larger than himself, or multiple opponents inside and outside the ring.
However, Holmes is not above cheating and will often use the environment, and other distractions to gain the upper hand when outnumbered or outsized.
Number 8: Skilled Marksman
Though not as skilled as Watson, he is also a proficient marksman.
However, he has a habit of unwisely unloading all of his bullets at a single target.
Number 9: “Expert Spy”
Holmes also liked donning various disguises to spy on or obtain specific information from different suspects.
He demonstrated this skill by secretly following Irene Adler through the back streets of London from his home as a homeless beggar to see who she was working for and therefore discovering that her employer was Professor Moriarty.
He demonstrated this a second time when he visited his friend and colleague John Watson as a Doctor in a Hospital after John was injured from a brief confrontation with Lord Blackwood.
Benedict Cumberbatch, Abilities as Sherlock Holmes
Number 1: Genius Level Intellect
Sherlock Holmes has an extremely high intellect and masterful observational skills.
He is presumably the third most intelligent character on the show currently alive, with only his elder brother Mycroft and younger sister Eurus surpassing him in intelligence.
However, Sherlock’s intelligence was sufficient that he was able to resist Eurus’s manipulation abilities.
Number 2: Deduction
Sherlock has many well-developed abilities that aid him with his detective work, including a profound aptitude for deductive reasoning.
Number 3: Investigation
He often uses a memory retrieval technique called “the method of loci”, which he refers to as his mind palace.
John describes this system of storing memories as plotting them on a map of a familiar location and retrieving those memories by finding the way back to them,
to theoretically never forget anything. To use this skill, Sherlock requires silence and space to himself to reduce outside interference.
Number 4: Cold Readings
Upon meeting a person, he will often “scan” them, using elements of their appearance and behavior to arrive at astonishingly accurate conclusions about their past or personality.
He sometimes even performs cold readings on a location such as an apartment to deduce a trait related to the current resident.
His cold readings are usually performed subconsciously, as his brain was still performing them and deducing things about people and places in front of him when he was heavily intoxicated on John’s stag night and severely depressed after Mary’s death.
However, Sherlock is not infallible, as he admits “there is always something” that he misses or misinterprets.
Number 5: Skilled Martial Artist
He also shows great skill in both armed and unarmed combat. His Conan Doyle counterpart’s rules of the combat discipline Baritsu hang over his bed.
He often uses his deductive reasoning to identify the weaknesses of his opponents before he strikes them, only losing in fights when he is taken by surprise.
Sherlock’s unarmed skills are great enough that he was able to fight a professional assassin on an even footing for an extended period.
However, he was overpowered by John when John was angry due to the death of his wife and was no match for his mind’s manifestation of Moriarty when they fought, though he was holding back with John and what happened with Moriarty was inside his head.
Number 6: Espionage Proficiency
Sherlock has also demonstrated incredible espionage talents. Despite not having spoken to Irene Adler for months, Sherlock was able to follow her to Pakistan,
pose as her executioner and save her life, keeping this a secret from possibly everyone.
Number 7: Master Violinist
Sherlock has shown considerable ability to play the violin on multiple occasions. He even stated he sometimes composes his pieces, as it “helps him think.”
Let us know whom you think portrayed Sherlock Holmes. much better in the comment section.
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