Review: Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows

Sherlock Holmes (Robert Downey Jr.) believes criminal mastermind Moriarty (Jared Harris) is the fiend behind a series of bombings all around Europe that appear to want to promote war between France and Germany. But why? Meanwhile, Sherlock’s friend and confidante Watson (Jude Law) is getting married. You will not be surprised to learn that stag night shenanigans are not the only trouble Sherlock is about to get Watson into as the duo (also aided by Sherlock’s diplomat brother Mycroft Holmes, played by Stephen Fry) try to work out just what Moriarty is up to. Rachel McAdams returns briefly as Holmes’ acquaintance Irene Adler, now in the employ of Moriarty. Noomi Rapace plays a French gypsy fortune teller, and Eddie Marsan briefly reprises his role as the rather humourless Inspector Lestrade.

 

My fears that Guy Ritchie (“Swept Away”, “Snatch”) would turn the beloved Arthur Conan Doyle character into a pugilistic thug were thankfully not realised in the first of his Sherlock Holmes adventures. It mostly played like any other interpretation of the character, and Robert Downey Jr. seemed perfect in the role. Besides, I’m no scholar of the character, so there’s the possibility I don’t really know what I’m talking about. I do know what I like and don’t like, however, and unfortunately, in this 2011 follow-up, Ritchie and his star open things up with Sherlock engaged in fisticuffs. Some of the film is amusing, but most of it is a bore, and a lot of it is overdone, including Downey. The talented Oscar-nominated actor, rather than playing Sherlock Holmes, seems to be aping Johnny Depp’s Captain Jack Sparrow in a somewhat entertaining but a little too self-indulgent performance. Did Sherlock really need to dress up as a woman at one stage? Really? Downey isn’t as self-indulgently flippant as he was in “Iron Man” to the complete detriment of the film, but he certainly tried my patience after a while. Funny, his performance never bothered me (nor brought up Depp comparisons) last time out.

 

The banjo score by Hans Zimmer (“Rain Man”, “The Lion King”, “Gladiator”), although suiting Ritchie’s interpretation of the characters (as was the case previously), actually irritated me here. It’s too insistent, and at times it even reminded me of the theme music for TV’s “Dexter”.

 

Overall, this is more of the same, only less. Sherlock engages in way too much physical activity for a drug-addicted intellectual detective. The first film got away with it, but this one doesn’t, especially when it appears that Sherlock Holmes was the inventor of aikido! Ritchie is seemingly obsessed with machinery and artillery, but what does any of this have to do with Sherlock frigging Holmes? The nefarious plot, as it unfolds in the script by Michele Mulroney and Kieran Mulroney (husband and wife, and I believe, part of the same Mulroney clan as actor Dermot), deals with arms dealings and seemed far more Bondian than Holmes to me. I may have bought it last time, but here I kept wondering why Ritchie bothered making a Sherlock Holmes film at all, let alone two.

 

There are positives, albeit much fewer than last time. The production design is fabulous and very appropriate, aside from all the mechanical doohickies that seem like leftovers from “Wild Wild West” (and they weren’t appropriate there, either). Jared Harris makes for an effective Moriarty, even if he doesn’t perhaps seem like the first actor you’d cast as an intellectual. One expected a bigger name in the role (Lord Laurence Olivier has played the role previously, for starters), but the rather underrated Harris is nonetheless very good (I’m convinced his vocal performance is based on the late Patrick McGoohan, anyone else agree?). Stephen Fry was seemingly born to play Mycroft Holmes if you ask me, and is spot-on. He’s easily the gayest thing in the film, but I must admit, when Holmes and Watson dance together at one point, I did wonder...not that there’s anything wrong with that. Jude Law, as was the case last time, is a terrific Dr. Watson, at least Guy Ritchie’s version of Dr. Watson.

 

The ladies are a disappointment, however, with Rachel McAdams offering a mere cameo reprisal, and (the ubiquitous) Noomi Rapace’s French accent coming and going annoyingly frequently.

 

For the most part I found this film a tedious reprisal of things that mostly worked the first time, but served to either bore or irritate this time. It’s only about two hours long, but the film seems interminable.

 

Rating: C-