“Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows” begins with sheets of old-fashioned, unbleached paper moving their way across the screen. Dr. John Watson is sitting at a typewriter, writing a memoir of his great friend, Sherlock Holmes. It’s a remarkably ironic start to a movie that bears almost no resemblance to the stories that gave us the title character. Is director Guy Ritchie having a laugh at the expense of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s many fans? If so, it’s one of those laughs that accompany its subject all the way to the bank. Ritchie’s first film featuring the detective, 2009’s “Sherlock Holmes,” made $209 million domestically, and $315 abroad.
Even fans of the first flick, though, might find themselves a little disappointed with the sequel. Like the original, “A Game of Shadows” is a pretty solid action film. But the dark, Victorian setting married to modern, exaggerated action sequences doesn’t offer the same unexpected contrast this time around.
| On screen |
| ‘Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows’ |
| 2 out of 4 stars |
| Stars: Robert Downey Jr., Jude Law, Jared Harris |
| Director: Guy Ritchie |
| Rated: PG-13 for intense sequences of violence and action, and some drug material |
| Running time: 129 minutes |
The actors are still in top form. Robert Downey Jr. returns as the titular sleuth, with Jude Law as his loyal, extremely patient sidekick. As the movie opens, it appears the two won’t be solving mysteries together anymore: Watson is about to be married.
Though Holmes can’t imagine the pleasures of matrimony, it’s not the lonely detective who brings Watson back into the fold. The world’s greatest investigative mind is pursuing the world’s greatest criminal mind. And Professor James Moriarty (Jared Harris) will stop at nothing to stop Holmes — including targeting the just-married couple.
So the pair — along with a mysterious Gypsy played by Noomi Rapace, the original Swedish “Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” — find themselves racing across Europe to stop a man who is using the unrest of the time to foment a very profitable war.
Train travel was the order of the day, and there is an exceedingly exciting sequence when the Watsons leave for their honeymoon to find the vehicle is run entirely by Moriarty’s henchmen. Most of the other action, however, is slowed down by Ritchie’s strange need to overstylize it all. It might be clever to portray the lightning-fast calculations Holmes makes when faced with a crisis, much as a chess player always sees the game many moves ahead. But must we see the exact path of every bullet, painstakingly shown?
Still, Ritchie has given us a family-friendly holiday flick that idealizes friendship and a nobly single-minded pursuit of the good. For that, some of Doyle’s fans will no doubt forgive him.
