Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows

Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows. Also known as Sherlock Holmes: How many times can we say the word ‘game’ in this film? I counted at least twelve. That’s right, I counted, I’m that sad.

Let’s start this off by saying that I wasn’t a big fan of the first Guy Ritchie Sherlock film. Whilst it is a good film, I did have my problems with it, one being that, in the books and other adaptations, Sherlock also managed to get Watson to do the hard work. In the 2009 film Sherlock was a member of Fight Club. There were other problems which I will address as this review goes on. But, I have to admit, I enjoyed this film much more than the first one.

We start off with the welcome sight of Rachel McAdams, reprising her role as Irene Adler, delivering a package to guy soon to be killed off Dr Hoffmanstahl (Wolf Kahler); the initial attempt is thwarted by Sherlock (Robert Downey Jr.), but the doctor is eventually killed by gun-for-hire Sebastian Moran (Paul Anderson), I assume. Sherlock meets up with Dr. Watson (Jude Law) and tells him that he has linked Professor James Moriarty (Jared Harris) to several deaths. Holmes and Watson team up with gypsy fortune teller Simza Heron (Noomi Rapace) to stop him.

 

Now, the acting is great, Downey Jr. and Jude Law give near perfect performances and have brilliant chemistry with each other, and all the other characters aren’t bad either. Jared Harris was a brilliant choice to play Moriarty, and Rachel McAdams was perfect. And Stephen Fry was really good as well, a pleasant surprise as I didn’t know he was in it until he actually turned up on screen.

I have to give a special nod to Paul Anderson though, for making a secondary antagonist a brilliant and complex addition to the film. Despite being described as a “gun-for-hire”, he is shown to be fiercely loyal to Moriarty, helping him  get out from some rubble (when a lighthouse fell on top of him) before going after Holmes, Watson, Simza and her fellow gypsies. Watson describes him as an expert marksman, which shows when he manages to pick off several moving targets with one shot. He even has one of the funniest scenes in the film, actually I think it’s the only scene I laughed at personally, in which he has a tense sniper battle with Watson, reminiscent of Jude Law ‘s performance in ‘Enemy at the Gates’, then sees that Watson has armed himself with an anti-aircraft cannon. Watson destroys the lighthouse that Sebastian was using, and Watson even shoots him later, but Sebastian kept coming back, he’s the God damn Terminator!

Now let’s talk about Moriarty. For some reason Watson seems to have completely forgotten about him from the end of the first film, or was he told? I can’t remember. We first see him in the shadows at a restaurant with Sebastian and Irene, before coming out of the darkness revealing his face. Now, I felt this ruined the mystery of the character. Then again a street in town had a poster showing Moriarty and the actor who played him, so we already knew what he looked like. The film however managed to pull it off and still brought us a great villain. Also, after thinking about it, since the previous film told us Moriarty was the villain and everyone who knows anything about Sherlock Holmes knows that Moriarty is Holmes’ greatest rival, so the audience would know that he’s the villain.

Moriarty’s motive is...to be honest, a little bizarre. He has already shown that he’s an extremely powerful individual, capable of manipulating countries, eliminating people without being there, he has amassed a great fortune, and his plan in this film is to...get more money? I mean, he has his henchmen bomb parts of France and Germany to create tension between the two, he eliminates rivals in war profiteering companies so that he owns everything from “bandages to bullets”, to generate a fortune? Doesn’t he already have a fortune? I suppose he could get more money from it, but it just seemed odd.

Now, Sherlock Holmes. Where should I start? Well, Robert Downey Jr. was gold, as per usual, bringing a great look to an already popular character. But, as said before, Holmes always managed to get Watson to do all the hard work, in the Guy Ritchie films, Holmes does pretty much 90% of it instead. Not that it’s a problem mind you. Then there’s his costumes, his many disguises. They, are, horrible! I can’t see how anyone is fooled by them since they’re obviously him, especially the cross dresser disguise. How can the train staff member say “enjoy your journey madam”, when the lady has a beard?! He did manage to look like the Joker though.

Then there’s the moments where he predicts an opponent’s moves. While this does show his intelligence, it also shows that he can predict the future! The fights go exactly the way he predicts, there’s no free will at all. Well, almost. Simza interferes in one fight so it didn’t go exactly the way it was. I just don’t like this fight prediction thing, and it eats up time.

Though another time it doesn’t work is when he does the prediction with Moriarty, where he predicts defeating Moriarty in a fight. The only problem is that Moriarty is, of course, as smart as Holmes, so he does his own fight prediction where he beats and ultimately kills Holmes. That’s actually a really cool thing they put in, one which results in Holmes’ apparent death...for the second time. Seriously, there’s no point in putting the fake Holmes death scenes in, because we know you aren’t going to kill off the title character. If you left his death unsolved at the end of the film, it would’ve worked better. The interaction scenes between the two characters were really good as well; Holmes talks directly to Moriarty about his plan and Moriarty knows Holmes isn’t stupid and therefore treats him with respect. But at the same time, Moriarty shows that he can outsmart Holmes, tricking him into going to the wrong place where a bomb was planted.

The special effects were actually pretty good too, especially the locations, it really did look like we entered a Victorian world. But at the same time, it could’ve been better, since some of it did look obviously fake.

Overall? It was a really good film. The plot is good, the acting is great, the characters are brilliant, there’s not much you can say that’s bad with this film. Definitely one of the best films this year.