![]() The result is a fun film with flashes of Holmes-like brilliance, but just as many moments of mediocrity. It's the film's finest sequence, and perhaps the best of the series thus far, making one wish that Ritchie and co had spent less time on cheap gags and repetitive action and more time allowing the relationship between these two timeless enemies to breathe. Mercifully Ritchie pulls it all together for the film's exhilarating finale, as Holmes and Moriarty go head-to-head in a game of chess that turns into the ultimate test of their mental and physical strength. ![]() ![]() He also has trouble keeping up with Kieron Mulroney and Michelle Mulroney's dense plot, the film sagging badly in the middle as Holmes and Watson encounter skirmish after skirmish for reasons often unfathomable. Jared Harris excels as Holmes' arch-nemesis Moriarty.īut there are a few too many sequences that detail the inner workings of Holmes's mind, a conceit that felt fresh first-time-around, but suffers from the law of diminishing returns on a second outing. Delivering dastardly lines with a chilling coolness, he nevertheless leaves you in little doubt that there is a volcano of rage bubbling beneath the surface, and that this is a man capable of crimes most heinous. The same cannot be said of Moriarty however, with Mad Men star Jared Harris delivering a grandstanding performance as one of literature's most celebrated villains. A very smart pillock, but a pillock all the same. Robert Downey Jr.'s was hardly the most complex and nuanced take on the character in the original - see Benedict Cumberbatch's work in the BBC's recent Sherlock if you're after that - but in playing him broader still this time around, his Holmes seems one-dimensional and, dare-we-say-it, something of a pillock. Moreover, when Sherlock isn't playing mind-games with Moriarty, he's something of a clown in this instalment, spending an inordinate amount of time flirting with or winding up Watson, and donning all manner of ridiculous disguises, including a particularly misjudged dress. Indeed, as with the first film, there is humour peppered throughout A Game of Shadows, most notably at the expense of Watson's wedding and subsequent honeymoon, but this time around the gags aren't always successful, Holmes's seemingly endless supply of one-liners failing to raise much more than a smile. He also appears in the year's most unexpected and unnecessary nude scene in which we very nearly see Fry's fry. Channelling his TV work as Bertie Wooster's supercilious butler Jeeves, Fry delivers a note-perfect performance, undermining young 'Shirley' at every turn. A more successful addition to proceedings is the inimitable Stephen Fry as Mycroft Holmes, Sherlock's older, lazier, smarter brother. But while Sim is handy with a knife - rescuing the dynamic duo from all manner of tight spots with a flourish of her blade - she brings little else to proceedings, Girl with the Dragon Tattoo actress Noomi Rapace largely wasted in the role. Along the way they pick up a stray waif in the shape of gypsy fortune teller Sim, who has her own dark connection to Moriarty. With the game afoot, Holmes and Watson set out on a European odyssey, the conspiracy taking them to France, Germany and then finally to Switzerland, where the boys are charged with the task of not just bringing down the Professor, but of preventing the collapse of western civilization as we know it. The pair come face-to-face early on in proceedings, during a spellbinding scene in which they mentally spar with each other while at the same time triggering a chain of events that set them on a far more serious collision course.
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