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Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows
| Released |
16 December 2011 |
| Director |
Guy Ritchie |
Starring
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Robert Downey Jr., Jude Law, Jared Harris, Eddie Marsan, Stephen Fry, Noomi Rapace, Rachel McAdams |
Writer(s)
|
Michele Mulroney, Kieran Mulroney |
Producer(s)
|
Joel Silver, Lionel Wigram, Susan Downey, Dan Lin |
| Origin |
United States |
| Running Time |
129 minutes |
| Genre |
Action, adventure, crime |
| Rating |
12A |
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Steampunk James Bond.
The franticly paced and slickly directed opening sequence of Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows wastes no time in setting the tone for an action packed thrill ride to come. As was the case with its predecessor, the sequel to 2009’s Sherlock Holmes clearly owes a lot to James Bond and Jason Bourne. This is a steampunk spy thriller more than a detective story.
However while this may appear as little more than a standard Hollywood action blockbuster, there is a lot more wit and depth to A Game of Shadows than might be expected. This comes mostly from the well-rounded and amusing characters, and both Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law are clearly having great fun with their respective roles as Holmes and Watson. The playfully strained relationship between the two is what really sets this film apart. Drawing far more on the literary characters than might be expected, Guy Ritchie has managed an incredibly difficult task of crafting an intelligent yet enjoyable blockbuster, with a clever plot and interesting characters, not to mention some incredibly well put together action sequences.
A Game of Shadows is far from perfect. While it is beautifully shot in an incredibly realised Victorian world, the over reliance on CGI seems to push this world slightly too far beyond the realms of possibility. Likewise while the plot is clever and engaging, it tends to drag in the middle, with plenty of scenes adding little but an excuse for another action sequence. The inclusion of Stephen Fry as Holmes’s brother Mycroft has also necessitated some completely unnecessary moments of Fry hamming up his acting for comic relief.
But these are small points of contention in an otherwise incredibly enjoyable movie. While A Game of Shadows is clearly nothing like any Holmes story written by Arthur Conan Doyle, the sense that these are his characters remains. The plot is a decidedly modern one – filled with spies, conspiracies and the looming threat of war – but there are plenty of knowing nods to the source material. The buddy act of Holmes and Watson is played brilliantly, as is the meeting of Holmes with his nemesis Professor Moriarty. The plot builds to a brilliantly tongue-in-cheek twist, with an incredibly knowing nod to the original books. The carefree adaptation of such a well-regarded literary character could easily have gone horribly wrong, but its characters stay brilliantly faithful to their origins. Suspend your disbelief at the door on the way in, but not your brain. This is a fun, enjoyable blockbuster, but with an underlying intelligence worthy of its protagonist.
- Bernard O’Rourke |
