Sherlock Holmes a Game of Shadows picks up where the 2009 Sherlock film left off and again sees Robert Downey Jr and Jude Law as Holmes and Watson once more, but this time they face off against the diabolical Professor Moriarty (Jared Harris), a genius as good as Holmes if not better, the game's afoot.
I went into this new Sherlock film with a slightly mixed bag of expectations, having not really had much thought for its predecessor save for its rather dashing leads, nevertheless I was undeterred to see this film because of that fact, how did the game proceed this time one must wonder?
Well it is of a surprise that I kind of enjoyed this new adventure, mainly because this time the focus was more on the relationship between Mr. Holmes and Dr. Watson, something that was sadly relegated to the side lines last time, but not this time dear reader, this time they're front and centre and they're scenes are as good as ever.
But even the greatest of men cannot live without two undeniable facts; a dastardly fiend to test their very limits and strength and foibles which such fowl beasts can use to exploit them, here Mr. Harris equips himself well and his scenes with Downey are ever so good but while the first half of their adventure was riveting, the 2nd was slightly unbalanced, not sure whether to tone down its frenetic action or not, a classic foil in many a film one would say for sure.
But regardless of this, this new adventure was rather fun, more so than the last, hopefully more are just around the bend, 3 out of 5.
2 comments:
Nice write-up though we had different opinions on this one. I enjoyed the first - and the best part of these stories for me, are the problem solving and the banter between Holmes and Watson. The first one cleverly introduced clues to the puzzle, and even if we overlooked them, Holmes was intuitive enough to put it all together - and the big final reveal was a surprise. In this one, there are too many skirmishes and gun fights. The story is confusing, and I just lost interest, which is a shame, because the final showdown with Moriarty (an excellent Harris) was quite clever. It wasn't a gunfight, but a game of 'mind chess' I guess. I enjoyed the Holmes/Watson bromance but I thought a lot of it was rehashed, and I don't know why Noomi Rapace was in the film. She was wasted. I just found everything that made the first film fun, to be less effective here. But, I am glad you enjoyed it, and a lot of people I saw the film with that night shared your opinion.
Very good review of the movie :)
As an avid Sherlockian, I find this movie to be quite different from the stories of Sir Doyle. Still the movies have some entertainment value, even though they are not very authentic in depicting the characters.
Cheers!
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