A QHQ?

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I got a little behind this week (from what I heard in class yesterday, I'm not the only one, and our first checkpoint is next Friday!), so I'm doing two entries in one day.  This one is supposed to be a Question-Hypothesis-Question, and (according to the assignment page) "the first question should be whatever initial research question you've formulated. The hypothesis is what you think the answer is and why you think that. Once you have your hypothesis, you should be able to tell what the next question you have about the topic is."  I'm not sure how this will work out.
My first question was "is the Ritchie/Downey Sherlock Holmes the Arthur Conan Doyle Sherlock Holmes, or is it a serious distortion?"  Now, my hypothesis.  From what I've read so far, the R/D SH actually fits ACD's SH in a lot of ways.  The big difference I'm seeing has to do with the presentation of SH as a man of action, and a really quirky one at that.  Is that a distortion?  Maybe, maybe not.  I've been reading "The Six Napoleons," and in it Holmes and Watson are constantly on the move, going all over London (from the best to the worst and back again) to ask questions.  So, there's a lot of that kind of action.  I'm also thinking that SH -- or Conan Doyle -- is always secretive about his background.  We never find out much about how he came to be a detective or where he grew up.  His brother Mycroft doesn't turn up in the early stories (I think, but I'll have to check that), and when he does, he's kind of mysterious, too.  In the stories, the focus is always on the mystery at hand, and description of SH is doled out in small details here and there as they occur to Watson (who is usually the narrator).  The film can't help but provide lots of information, since the audience is seeing everything (well, almost everything) of Holmes, and all the visuals suggest many things about SH.  For example, the way he dresses is obvious in a film, but in the stories, his clothing is described most often when he is in disguise.  I also think that the Holmes of the stories is of a higher class than in the film, but I'll think more about that later.  So, I guess that the film is not a serious distortion, but it does have a point of view that is different from a very conservative reading of the stories.

And that leads me to the last question:  Is Sherlock Holmes an action hero?  I ask this because that is the thrust of the film and it appears that the stories support that idea.  Now I suppose I need to begin thinking about what an action hero really is.