Climbing Higher Pictures

Robert Downey Jr. is a man with quite a full plate. Now with two working franchises going simultaneously (he’s got The Avengers this summer and Iron Man 3 the following year just for starters) the man is in high demand. With that in mind, it’s surprising that Warnerbros. managed to get him back for a second go-round as the titular detective so quickly, and with a potential third installment riding on this film’s successful release, the board has been set and the pieces are moving. Does this sequel achieve its much desired checkmate?

Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows Review

By Ryan Hamelin

Movie Grade: B

It was bound to happen. A hugely successful relaunch of one of the most classic characters in literature pretty much guaranteed a sequel, and two years later, we find ourselves right where we left off. Guy Ritchie‘s Sherlock Holmes surprised the skeptics of its action oriented re-imagining with a combination of great character moments and a clever script that built a yarn fit for Sir Arthur Conan Doyle himself. With his arch nemesis only hinted at, it should come as no shock that this sequel aims itself directly at Holmes’ greatest enemy, the devious mastermind of Professor James Moriarty. The globe-trotting adventure has the epic canvas one would expect, but does the parchment remain intact, or does the weight of expectation burn a whole in the carefully laid plan.

Interestingly, the question of expectation is dissolved almost immediately as Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows stumbles headfirst out of the gate. Shoddy character re-introductions, a dizzying series of location changes and major exposition that’s only vaguely explained make for a first act that is almost indecipherable. Not to mention that these scenes are meant to build the emotion upon which the rest of the film is based, and yet there’s literally no time allowed for the moments to breathe. It’s like someone told the filmmakers that they had to reach a predetermined plot point in an exact amount of time, and the editing team went about tightening and trimming a good twenty minutes of fat where there hadn’t really been any to begin with. There were rumors in our screening that an early UK cut of the film was quite a bit longer, and if I had to hazard a guess, most of that time came out of the beginning of the movie.

Once we’re past our set up, things settle down into a much more familiar, and quite a bit more enjoyable pace. The jokes start landing, the characters redeem their earlier awkwardness, and the adrenaline begins to pump. You’ll be hard pressed to remember all the little fragments of exposition that were tossed at you in the opening half hour with the care of someone hurling the contents of a paper shredder, but it really won’t matter. Moriarty is behind it all, and his aim is a war that could end the western world as we know it. With that simple premise finally capitalized on, the rest of the pieces fall into place, and by the time we reach the international peace summit nestled in the mountains of Switzerland, you’ll be sufficiently informed to be able to begin munching your popcorn loudly once again. The finale is easily the most capable part of the film, and it does a great job of redeeming much of the earlier portions of the movie. At times the film suffers from fits of grandeur, truly beautiful sequences that should be iconic were they built on a stronger foundation. The clock face is quite pretty indeed, it’s the gears that are a convoluted and corroded mess underneath.

Through it all, the stars shine brightly. Robert Downey Jr. slides back into his stilted British accent like putting on a pair of slippers. Jude Law gets a lot more to do this time around, and could even potentially be regarded as the primary protagonist. Stephen Fry is an absolutely delightful addition as Holmes’ brother, and the screen lights up whenever he’s around. Noomi Rapace doesn’t really have that much to do besides look exotic, and that’s a real shame. Perhaps she had some great scenes of her own that ended up on the cutting room floor. The value of certain characters is a bit of a curiosity in the film as some that you’d expect to be impactful aren’t, and others that you wouldn’t consider important resonate. It’s another way in which the editing, particularly of the beginning, really hurts the whole movie, reducing a lot of potent developmental milestones to cliffnotes and summaries.

Make no mistake, this cast and crew are a group of highly talented and highly creative people and when the movie hits its stride, it works incredibly well. Unfortunately, audiences may find themselves shutting down in the early going, and it would take a bit of superhuman storytelling to raise the work back up to the heights of the original. That film stood alone on its own two feet, and this one feels a bit reminiscent of another continuing storyline sequel, the recent James Bond outing Quantum of Solace. Bypassing the need for a more substantial recap of characters and events is a benefit to many sequel stories, but here they may have taken that a bit too much to heart. I’m interested to see it again and gauge how it works with an audience, but I can’t say I’m in any particular rush. If there is to be a third film, I’m curious as to where they feel they have left to go, and if this ends up being the last act of this particular incarnation, they can’t say they didn’t go out with a bang. Certainly worth seeing, but a lowering of expectations may aide in the ultimate enjoyment.