Sherlock Holmes: A Game Of Shadows

Director: Guy Ritchie

Starring: Robert Downey Jr., Jude Law, Noomi Rapace, Jared Harris & Rachel McAdams

Rating: ★★★

Many people enjoyed watching the first Sherlock Holmes with Robert Downey Jr in the title role, including myself, even though I had several issues with its classification. Regardless of this, the first steampunk adventure tale was fast, furious and funny, and with this sequel, subtitled A Game of Shadows, Guy Ritchie and company once again give us everything that we liked about the first film and more, even though most of the film makes no real sense, and plot wise, is a jumbled incomprehensible mess.

This may seem like a damning critique straight off the bat, but to be honest, the film is so amped up and manically exciting that the cluttered plot holes and muddled events really are clearly secondary to the gun toting fist flying acrobatic action and the snappy dialogue laden scene stealing powerhouse performances from the central cast. To say that you have to suspend your suspension of disbelief is putting it mildly, as the events that take place within this movie and the supposed 19^th century setting are beyond incredulous. But who cares? We paid our money to see a spectacle, to see Robert Downey Jr smirk at the camera alongside Jude Law, their unsubtle homoerotic humorous banter driving up the tension during extended fight sequences. 

Sherlock and Watson strive to find answers...

To be honest, I wouldn’t even know where to start when discussing the ‘plot’. It is essentially all about Sherlock trying to stop Professor Moriarty (Harris) from causing a world war, and during the course of the film Sherlock and his trusty assistant Dr Watson travel from England to France, through Germany and then end up in Switzerland, along the way doing a very good job at avoiding being killed by the numerous henchmen. Unlike the first one, this film relies much less on deduction and riddle solving, and instead focuses a literal army of gun totting sniper shooting bomb making lackeys who manage to continuously cross paths with the two protagonists, and get brutally foiled by them.

For no real reason they are assisted by a beautiful French Swedish gypsy, played by Rapace, the titular star of the Swedish Millennium trilogy movies, who quickly get demoted from important asset to Bond Girl assistant who just stands around so that this isn’t a sausage fest. McAdams very briefly returns as Holmes’ love interest Irene Adler for the Bond style intense opening set piece, which I enjoyed since she was very good in the first film and everyone has a lot of love for McAdams.

It's not really funny how quickly Rapace's role gets demoted to an unnecessary Bond Girl.

Like the first one, Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows is overly long, and really should have stopped after the showdown in Germany, which is just a tease for the real face-off in Switzerland where there is a literally battle of wills, seriously, which is, logically, just as brain numbingly silly as it sounds- but hey it looks good and is interesting and exciting, and keeps Holmes’ character in check as a ‘rational thinker’ so who cares about reality? The messy plot is easily resolved, which begs the question that perhaps the plot could have just been much simpler to begin with, instead of pretending to be intelligently complex when it was just unnecessarily convoluted.

What you see is what you get, and with a movie like this, it is action sequences and star performances. Downey Jr. and Law are excellent at being likeable and watchable as their on screen chemistry continues to ignite, and Guy Ritchie takes his stylised directorial style from the first movie and improves upon it, creating some breathtakingly exhilarating action scenes that are mesmerising to watch. The bit when they are running through the forest in slow motion looks excellent; the gun fights on the moving train are exciting; and the duel between Dr Watson and the sniper in Germany is tense and hilarious. 

Don't ask me how they manage to survive this scene...

Although I continue to question how this film was once again rated as a ‘12A’ in the UK, as an adult who was not responsible for a young child I just sat back and enjoyed it, allowing myself to get sucked in and not think about the fact that the young children watching it would be forever disturbed. Seeing someone blow their brains out? Not a problem! Impaling and torturing someone with a meat hook? Who cares! With the current world climate being what it is, children are going to have to one day get used to seeing violent acts like this regularly, so we might as well let them watch them now!

Holmes, impaled. Apparently, this has not been deemed upsetting or disturbing for young children.

So if you want to sit back, switch your brain off and tune in for a non-stop roller coaster ride of intrigue, violence and hilarity, then Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows is for you! If, like me, you liked the first Sherlock Holmes movie, then I’m pretty sure that you will enjoy this one too, as it is bigger, better and even more insane, smothered with sharp shooting dialogue and dripping wet in adrenaline soaked mayhem.