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Films on the to-do list

  • Armageddon Time
  • Black Widow
  • Chimes at Midnight
  • The Killing of a Sacred Deer
  • Last Christmas
  • Remember Sunday
  • Shazam! 2
  • Thor: Love and Thunder
  • Spy Guys

Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows (2011)

Film review: Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows (2011), directed by Guy Ritchie

Two years ago, Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson got new faces, and now they’re  back in another Victorian romp. My recollection of the previous film is sketchy to say the least, so if you haven’t seen the previous film, you should be okay to see this one, even though it’s a sequel.

Irene Adler (Rachel McAdams), the devious love interest in the previous film, is soon dispatched with, and the focus instead shifts to professor James Moriarty (Jared Harris) and the French and Germans who are trying to start a war with one another.

Holmes (Robert Downey Jr) is trying to combine a lot of clues all over the world, but still fails to prevent the death of a businessman. Meanwhile,  Dr. Watson (Jude Law) is trying to get ready for his marriage with Mary (Kelly Reilly) – which includes a wild stag night with Sherlock and his brother Mycroft (Stephen Fry).

At the pub/club where the stag night is held, Sherlock comes across a French gypsy, Simza (Noomi Rapace, with an accent more Swedish than French, let’s be honest), whose anarchist brother seems to be implicated in the plot. And so the adventure begins – from gunfights on trains to gunfights in munitions factories and chess games on cliffside castles. Hold on to your hat!

Other notable appearances: Geraldine James as Mrs Hudson (Sherlock’s landlady and/or housekeeper?) and Eddie Marsan as Inspector Lestrade, who really only does a cameo.

Two things struck me while watching this film: 1) The castle on the cliffside is awesome and is giving me ideas. 2) If you don’t particularly like the film, it’s just over two hours worth of Robert Downey Jr and/or Jude Law (depending on your preference) in period costume and that’s perfectly fine by me.

The story itself is full of action and adventure and is entertaining enough, even though it does feel as if come another two years, I’ll be in the same position with it as I am with the 2009 film – I won’t remember what on earth it was about and only have some kind of vague recollection about the characters and having seen it. Guess we’ll have to wait and see if there’s going to be a third one.

But yeah, I couldn’t help but feel a bit meh at times about this film, it just didn’t really grab me. I don’t think I was fully engrossed in it until near the end, and only for short periods of time with the rest. It’s by no means a bad film, it’s very well acted for instance, but the slow motion fight scenes, à la 300, is starting to feel a bit old hat now. Then there’s the miracle cure that seems a bit too miraculous, and so on, but overall, it’s a fun film. Stephen Fry, while I didn’t really buy that he’d be the brother of Robert Downey Jr (there’s just no physical similarity at all), is brilliant as the eccentric Mycroft.

And as for Sherlock Holmes himself, well … eccentricity must run in the family. Great fun. Still, not sure it deserves as much as a 4.

So, perhaps, 3.7 out of 5 black chess pieces will suffice.

Traxy

An easily distracted and over-excited introvert who never learns to go to bed at a reasonable time. Enjoys traveling (when there's not a plague on), and taking photos of European architecture. Cares for cats, good coffee and Boardwalk Empire. A child of her time, she did media studies in school and still can't decide what she wants to be when she grows up.

5 thoughts on “Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows (2011)

  1. I mean, it’s good fun and not something I want to scream “hey, give me two hours of my life back!!” after having seen, but yes, I’m not sure it’s all that memorable. Fun while it lasts, though. That’s always something. 🙂

  2. I agree with you, Traxy, it was fun. A well-done blockbuster movie and I liked it. I went because my husband definitely wanted to see it on the 19th , when it came out, but I didn’t regret going with him.
    Loved Stephen Fry, Downey Jr (not my type), Jude Law and Noomi Rapace. I preferred Mark Strong in the first movie as the nemesis, though Jared Harris’s Professor Moriarty was wicked enough 😉
    My review, as usual, is on Fly High! http://flyhigh-by-learnonline.blogspot.com/2011/12/at-cinema-sherlock-holmes-2-game-of.html

  3. I didn’t see the first one, just the ads, but I was able to get into the movie. A bit over-the-top, but I enjoyed it. I found it a bit poignant, actually, at the end, when I realized that Holmes was basically trying to stop WWI from taking place (he only succeeded in putting it off for a few years). When he and Watson and the others are running for their lives through the woods towards the end of the film and being barraged by all that heavy-duty artillery fire, I thought of all the battles that would rage along the Western Front with those same weapons. Yeah, I know, too much thinking for what is basically an action-adventure popcorn movie.

  4. Yeah, but then you can’t NOT think about those things, really, especially how he tries to stop WWI and ends up just postponing it, like you say. Thanks for stopping by! 🙂

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