I'm surprised no one has mentioned the Perry Mason movies made in the mid-1930s. They featured a couple of different Masons and they were more action oriented than Burr's portrayal. If Sherlock Holmes can be updated repeatedly (Rathbone, Brett, Downey, Cumberbatch ... see also
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...herlock_Holmes), I don't see why Mason can't be reinvented. The books were written over a forty year period so there's a good case for setting them in the 1940s as a compromise, giving them a "vintage" feel but also allowing for a little more noir-grit.
But the stumbling block would still remain the Gardiner estate which, I presume, controls the film rights. In absentia.