SHERLOCK HOLMES: A GAME OF SHADOWS

SHERLOCK HOLMES: A GAME OF SHADOWS

Reviewed by Patrick Gibbs

Grade: A -

Robert Downey, Jr., Jude Law, Noomi Rapace, Jared Harris and Rachel McAdams

Screenplay by Michelle Mulroney and Keiran Mulroney

Based on characters and situations created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Directed by Guy Ritchie

In 2009, when everyone else was going gaga over the trailer for Sherlock Holmes (which played approximately 100 time per hour on any available media outlet), I remained skeptical to the point of wariness. While I'm a long time fan of Robert Downey, Jr, having firmly believed since Chaplin that, if the actor could clean up his act he could be the biggest thing in Hollywood, I was considerably less enthusiastic about director Guy Ritchie, in particular his most recent film, the clumsily and self consciously cool but incessantly lowbrow Rock N' Rolla. More importantly, I'm a life long, obsessive Sherlockian, and the trailers did nothing to convince me that we were going to see Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Holmes on the big screen. I gritted my teeth going into the film, prepared for the worst – and was pleasantly surprised. Ritchie's take on the material was unique – liberally piling on the comedic elements and stylized fight sequences, and playing heavily on the repartee between Holmes and Watson. In truth, it's really Sherlock Holmes by way of Lethal Weapon (the presence of producer Joel Silver on both franchises is hardly coincidental), but Ritchie did manage to make me feel a strong enough presence of Doyle that I welcomed this new incarnation as an interesting and entertaining take on the material rather than the feared total reworking.

With the follow up, Sherlock Holmes: A Game Of Shadows, I went with much higher hopes, but also with the lowered expectations that come with a sequel, and mixed feelings about seeing them tackle the story of Professor James Moriarty, Holmes’s arch nemesis. While Moriarty is a presence in the first film, seeing them actually square off was delving directly into territory covered by Doyle in The Final Problem, and I was not sure I wanted to see that story tossed out the window.

The film begins with a rousing sequence as Holmes follows Moriarty’s trail, engaging in a metaphorical chess game. The first pawn in that game is sacrificed in what might be a political assassination, which sets off tensions between Germany and France. Mixing business with pleasure, Holmes tracks the clues to an underground gentlemen’s club, where he and his brother, Mycroft (Stephen Fry) are toasting Dr. Watson (Jude Law) on his last night of bachelorhood. It is there that Holmes encounters Simza (Noomi Rapace, the star of the original Swedish version of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo), a Gypsy fortune teller, who sees more than she is telling and whose unwitting involvement in the murder makes her the killer’s next target. Holmes barely manages to save her life and, in return, she reluctantly agrees to help him. The investigation becomes ever more dangerous as it leads Holmes, Watson and Simza across the continent, from England to France to Germany and finally to Switzerland. But the cunning Moriarty is always one step ahead as he spins a web of death and destruction—all part of a greater plan that, if he succeeds, will change the course of history.

While Game of Shadows takes the story off in wildly different directions, adding a lot of new elements and greatly aggrandizing it for blockbuster scale, I found it to be an acceptable Hollywood re-imagining of The Final Problem, and a surprising number of the key elements are in place. This movie has just enough Doyle that it should please fans that are willing to go with Ritchie's approach, but also appeal to the crowd who aren't fans of the books but simply went to see the first film because of Downey and were caught up in it's silly charm. The action quotient is more than doubled this time around, and the film moves at a fast and gripping pace as Holmes is forced to keep up with an intellect that matches his own. Indeed, this is the very model of what you want a Hollywood sequel to be, and actually improves on the first installment in many respects.

Downey and Law are, of course, delightful as Holmes and Watson/Riggs and Murtaugh, though the faster pacing and greater emphasis on action and suspense means not as many memorable moments of bickering repartee. Downey seems to have taken the note that his fast talking and mumbling were a bit difficult to understand, and does his best to speak more clearly, and Law is given a chance to play a greater role in the action as Watson is given his own nemesis. The new additions to the cast are welcome ones. Rapace is quite an engaging presence, but this is a totally different version of her than fans of Lizbeth Salander might be expecting. She is really quite pretty without the Mohawk and piercings, and has a more natural chemistry with Downey and Law than Rachel McAdams (who is an actress I greatly admire, but somehow never quite gelled in the first film, and is given even less to do here.). Stephen Fry, well known to any serious fan of British comedy, makes a very enjoyable Mycroft – his eccentricities are exaggerated for comic effect, which has been Ritchie's largely successful approach to the characters from the beginning), and his obliviousness to the fact that he and his brother “Sherly” are the odd ones, not everyone else, leads to some amusing moments. But the standout here is Jared Harris, who may be best known to audiences as the Sea Captain in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, and will be playing Ulysses S. Grant to Daniel Day Lewis' Lincoln in Steven Spielberg's highly anticipated 2012 release. The announcement of Harris as Moriarty was seen as a disappointment by some, after a number of big names, including Brad Pitt, had been talked up the role (as much as I am an unabashed fan of Pitt, this would have been truly terrible casting), but Harris really nails the character, perfectly personifying “the Napoleon of Crime,” and providing an enemy that is less over the top than Mark Strong's Lord Blackwood in the previous film, but if anything, a good deal more menacing. Indeed, Harris may be the definitive screen Moriarty.

The film does have it's flaws – anachronisms abound, and the story is at times too convoluted for it's own good. In addition, Ritchie's penchant for mixing slow motion and quick cuts sometimes makes his action sequences a little bit confusing. But there is far more here that does work than does not, and taken as a piece of large scale popcorn entertainment, it is arguably the most satisfying straight sequel of the year. If you enjoyed Sherlock Holmes, then Shadows is a game well worth taking the time to play.

Sherlock Holmes: a Game of Shadows is rated PG-13 for violence, action suspense, mild profanity and brief partial nudity (thankfully, very partial – I don't think anyone out there wants to see any more of Stephen Fry than what we get here, though it is a funny scene.)