While his accomplice Dr Watson marries and prepares for his honeymoon, master detective Sherlock Holmes begins to uncover a spider's web of conspiracy throughout greater Europe. The two must help a gypsy fortune teller and uncover secrets for an all out war.
My love of consistency in film sequels is mostly satisfied here; the visuals are still old and worn, the soundtrack is still excellent but most importantly, Downey Jr and Law are still excellent as the two leads! They maintain their on-screen chemistry and look like they are genuinely enjoying themselves.
Unfortunately that is where the quality ends, and as much as it pains me to say, A Game of Shadows didn't satisfy after the potential first act. Director Ritchie still keeps the audience in the dark about the clues Holmes finds, while the actual conspiracy is pretty simple; Moriarty is revealed early on, and I feel the film could have benefited in keeping him as a shadowy "puppeteer" until the end.
Moriarty is about as subtle as a brick to the face; preferring to annihilate our heroes with Gatling guns, "Little Hansel" (a gigantic artillery cannon) or an assassin who can only kill the film's extras, rather than with any insidious plots.
The goofiness is turned up to eleven, and while it is fun to watch, there is discomfort in how unintelligent the entire thing feels.
The finale is excellent, the characters are all gems, but around them is a script and screenplay far too infantile and hamfisted for such intellectual property.
And here is my original review for the first Sherlock Holmes from 2009. See my enthusiasm for the sequel!
Another contender for top spots on people's person charts, sure did get a lot of attention even with Avatar out at the same time.I must admit, Sherlock Holmes looks great and has an awesome soundtrack, plus the film itself has a real rustic, gritty quality. The characters in Robert Downey Jr and Jude Law are perfect combinations and I can't wait to see more from this cast and crew. So... what's wrong with it?
The plot and the handling of the mystery. I am not alone in the belief that this film gives the audience absolutely nothing to go on. You watch the film and see completely extraneous clues and information flung left and right (very elegantly thrown, I might say) but we have no idea what's happening. The audience feels incapable of figuring out even the smallest of puzzle pieces, until Holmes goes through a great monologue about how he'd figured it out ages ago.
Now I know giving information to the audience could make it predictable... but seriously, you have to give us *something* to work with!It is a great opening film, no doubt of that, but it is mostly setup for a promising sequel!
hmm.. I think I might disagree with your review of Game of Shadows! Just saw it today, and was pleasantly surprised (perhaps I should say thanks for making my unsure, maybe that helped :o) ). What pleased me most was that it still seemed very dialogue-heavy, and still focussed on the characters. Too many sequels (and yes, I'm looking at Iron Man here!) think that because they did all the introductions in the first film, they don't need to focus on character any more. Thankfully this sequel didn't go down that route. I'm not normally a Guy Ritchie fan, but I have to thank him for that. I thought Moriarty was was excellent; I didn't mind him being fully present from early on, and I wouldn't say he was blunt... he was a war profiteer, and particularly nasty to Holmes I thought! Given how unintelligent some films are - I've been disappointed so many times in recent years by sequels - this felt pleasantly different. I agree one irritation was that clues often weren't revealed as clues at the time, only when they were being explained, which meant that at times it felt too clever for its own good, but I can forgive it that because the cast was excellent and the film looked amazing, as the last one did. I think it deserves 4 cups ;o)
ReplyDeleteReally? :S
ReplyDeleteI thought you wouldn't have appreciated the action-over-subtly in a Sherlock Holmes story! I didn't buy how Moriarty would use a gatling gun / army on a public train to kill three people. Perhaps more explanation as to why that event (a shooting on a train) would help his overall cause would've helped?
I thought there was far too much humour. Stephen Fry, naked, really? (that isn't a spoiler as people should be warned!)
There's a plot twist near the end which comes out of absolutely nowhere too.
The only redeeming part was the ending (and not in a sarcastic way) the final confrontation and its aftermath were really good.
hehe yes perhaps he might have been more subtle trying to kill people on the train than with his army, and yes I thought Stephen Fry naked was a bit over the top, but (weirdly for me I know) I generally didn't mind the humour, and didn't feel that there was too much. The fact that I was able to overlook things tells me the film was well put together and well-acted, because usually these are the sort of things that would switch me off..
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