Movie Review: Sherlock Holmes - A Game of Shadows

Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows is an example of how to do a sequel right. It takes the good aspects of the first film - in this case the witty banter, the cool fight sequences, the formidable villain etc - and intensify them to make for an altogether more enjoyable and less problematic movie.

We catch up with Sherlock (Robert Downey. Jr) and his faithful Dr. Watson (Jude Law) some time after the events of the last film, and this time they have to try and stop the genius criminal that is Professor James Moriarty (Jared Harris) from bringing about "the collapse of Western civilisation."

Easily the most enjoyable aspect of this current Sherlock Holmes incarnation is the exchanged dialogue between Holmes and Watson. The ingeniously cast Robert Downey Jr. once again brings his incomparable wit and charm to the role, and Jude Law is once more a great straight-man counter-balance to the titular detective's unpredictable antics. The two actors clearly have a lot of chemistry together and their ability to deliver laughs while at the same time being believable - if unorthodox - heroes is better than it was last time round.

Everyone else is on solid form, too, including the likes of Noomi Rapace - aka the original Girl With the Dragon Tattoo - as the new female lead (Rachel MacAdams is virtually shoved aside to make way for the new blood), Jared Harris, brilliantly cast as Professor Moriarty, and Stephen Fry as Sherlock's older, lazier brother Mycroft. They inhabit a Holmes universe which continues to feel fresh while still harking very much back to the classic stories originally written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle over a century ago. 

At the helm of the film once again is Guy Ritchie, a director more known for smart talking gangster films (Snatch and Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels) than big budget blockbusters. But he continues to prove himself very competent in this type of filmmaking, improving on what he did with the last movie while still maintaining the style through and through.

Article Author: Ross Miller

I am a film critic and blogger, and have been so since late 2007, going from starting my own movie review website, Movie World (which is still running), and then moving on to writing for various movie blogs.

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