Dec
21
2011
Finally got to my traditional quiet time movie outing. This year’s movie was the second Robert Downey Jr’s Sherlock Holmes, Game of Shadows. I can say that if you liked the first movie, you absolutely will enjoy this romp through the adventures of Watson and Holmes.
This outing picks up very much where the last movie ended with the story taking on the great battle between Holmes and his arch enemy Moriarty. The pace of the movie is very much repeated in this edition as the first, with little change from the style and feeling of the movie overall. And while I tend to like the cinematography of these movies, it’s style it’s pace, etc. I know some where put off by that in the first movie (my wife included. Who thinks the slow-motion thought process and the general messy look of the characters is not proper Holmes). Well, these “put off people” will not like movie two; however, you should still go and see this movie, if for nothing else, then the story line. I believe it’s a good bit better.
The humor and the new characters such as Stephen Fry as Holmes’ brother Mycroft, I believe adds the extra dimension to the story that the first movie did seem to lack a bit. Then of course there’s the addition of the arch enemy which is a cornerstone of the Holmes canon, Moriarty! Given even these added elements, the story from a mystery perspective clearly does not have the depth of the Doyle stories, but what can one expect. The movie is still very entertaining and in the end does the famous characters of Holmes, Watson, Mycroft, and Moriarty a good showing (I could point a number of miserable movies from the past- the Gene Wilder one that involved trying to make a comedy of the characters but in the end didn’t even do a good job of that).
So, in summary… I give this second outing high marks for those of us for whom Sherlock Holmes is a definitive favorite. Four and half stars 
as I had fun seeing this move.
~cse