Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows/2011
Directed by: Guy Ritchie
Starring: Robert Downey Jr., Jude Law, Jared Harris, Stephen Fry, Noomi Rapace
The Film: Get ready to feel like you've walked into a movie twenty minutes late... A Game of Shadows plot seems well underway by the time we jump into it. It's an economical way to tell a story - it's also a terrific way to leave the audience choking on dust as the story leaps and bounds three or four steps ahead of them.
Although this time around - with Professor Moriarty driving the plot madly forward, from London, Paris, and to all points yet uncharted in this series - it's apparent that Sherlock Holmes and Watson might be lagging behind a few steps behind as well.
A mad bomber is raining nine shades of hell in London, and it looks like a criminal genius may be behind the attacks. Holmes believes it's a gifted Professor named James Moriarty - and he just might be right. If this sounds a bit heavy (not to mention mundane) for a film plot - realize that this exposition is relayed during the opening five minutes of the movie. We haven't even started playing Moriarty's real game yet. This is simply the opening volley between master detective and criminal conspirator. The reading of the rules on the inside of the box lid if you will.
If the pace of this new Sherlock Holmes movie leaves you a bit out of breath, as well as a bit out of sorts... fret not Holmies and Holmesgirls - Ritchie will let you catch-up by last call.
If the final act of A Game of Shadows doesn't smack you silly (it took me a second to realize that I was literally applauding, out-loud, and had been doing so without even consciously acknowledging the action) and leave you wanting another one of these Sherlock Holmes movies sometime in the near future... better put a tap on that pulse chap.
You're a cold trout.
The stakes are much higher in this sequel. (bid Les Adieux to a major player from the first film - also in the opening minutes of Game of Shadows) Thanks to Jared Harris, (perfect casting this) who manages to circumvent the occult theatrics of Mark Strong's Lord Blackwood in the original flick and replace it with something much more cunning, material, and ruthless - Moriarty's a legitimate criminal mastermind. Sherlock Holmes has his manic brilliance, a few new tricks up his sleeve, his pet Doctor Watson, and he's brought his older - much odder, if you can envision that - brother this time around, but the events of A Game of Shadows make the preceding tale feel like a warm-up act.
The action's much more frenetic in Shadows, the camera work much more dizzying, (Holmes never misses a detail - and Ritchie's camera tricks are starting to feel a bit like a cheat) and the boys - Sherlock and Watson - just as rowdy and filled with sass as they ever were in Guy Ritchie's adaptation of Conan Doyle's work.
Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law are the best vaudeville duo working in the industry right now. Huzzah to the filmmaker who continues to put this team together in front of a camera.
The Verdict: I loved it. I don't mind that Ritchie turned this latest sequel into a chase movie. Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows knows how to have a good time. Even better... it knows how to make an exit.
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