RageLite review - Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows

The game evolves for Sherlock Holmes as he plays the Game of Shadows

Sherlock Holmes proved a decent success for Warner Brothers, so naturally a sequel was inevitable, it was fast-tracked by the studio and was released in 2011. It was about as successful as the first one commercially but there was a slight drop in critical response, with a 60% rating on Rotten Tomatoes compared to the 70 the first one got? Where did this one go wrong? Did it go wrong? Here’s my take:

Sherlock is on the trail of the devious Professor Moriarty, already having linked him to several murders across Europe. Irene Adler’s affection for Holmes whilst under his employ ultimately results in her getting killed. Things change on the day of John Watson’s wedding, when Moriarty targets Holmes directly, it soon becomes a race against the time with the peace of Europe at stake.

These Sherlock Holmes movies take the odd approaches of being action comedies instead of genuine mysteries. A fact which is even more prevalent in this film. The identity of Moriarty is not a mystery, he’s a public figure and Sherlock knows and is correct in the fact that he’s behind everything from the beginning, and even before then.

That doesn’t mean Sherlock doesn’t do detective work, but it’s a more active detective work than the usual psychology and interviews that you see in a mystery. Sherlock seems to notice the details when he enters the room, as the camera pans around and gives you flashes of these details. It also means he dons a lot of disguises, some rather questionable ones among them.

They do often throw you straight into the action, rather than setting it up before hand, this happens twice in the first half of the movie as Sherlock saves 2 people (one of whom is killed 5 seconds later but…) in different scenes without us knowing that they needed saving until the trap was about to be sprung. Because of this the pacing is usually quite fast, another interesting change from your conventional mystery.

There aren’t any major character arcs in this story like there were in the last one. Sherlock remains his brilliant but highly eccentric self and Watson remains the straight man to his antics. With them is Noomi Rapace’s Madame Simza Heron. She’s… not that interesting, Irene Adler was a far more charismatic and complex, and she’s killed off not far into this story. If the idea is each film have film have one woman like a bond girl routine, they seemingly forget that Bond girls tend to be one-dimensional sex objects.

Jared Harris’ portrayal of Moriarty is one of my favourite aspects of this movie. He’s exactly as you’d expect the arch nemesis of Holmes to be. Calculating, difficult to reach, harder to catch, cunning as they come and even manages to borrow Holmes’ weak spot combat trick. All of this makes the way he’s ultimately defeated a little too convenient. He’d really carry a book of such value on his person, and he’d only just noticed its theft.

The action is solid but nothing I haven’t seen better in other action films. The choreography and editing are watchable, which is more than I can say for a lot of films to be fair.

Because of the increased scope, much of the film takes place outside of London, I dunno, it didn’t quite feel right, especially when they mentioned the semi-incompetent Detective from the last movie who hadn’t shown up until this point.

The comedy is generally good but has a few misses also, they introduce us to Sherlock’s brother, Mycroft Holmes (Steven Fry) and there’s a scene where he has to stand there naked in front of Watson’s wife and it’s awkward and not especially funny.

The banter between Holmes and Watson remains funny. Although it may lean a little too heavily into the bromance for some people, I’m not one of them.

Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows is a good follow-up to the first Sherlock Holmes movie, it increases the scale but brings little new to the table and backs down on the character arcs. Still, solid action, a memorable set of performances and snappy dialogue are enough to keep me entertained.

Rating 70/100