Director	7.5/10
	Guy Ritchie
Producer	Warner Bros (United states)
Cast	Robert Downey Jr, Jude Law, Noomi Rapace,Jared Harris, Rachel McAdams, Stephen Fry, Kelly Reilly,Eddie Marsan, Geraldine James
Story	Michele Mulroney, Kieran Mulroney
Genre	Crime
Runtime	129min
Rating	PG-13

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Guy Ritchie, Robert Downy Jr, Jude Law, Noomi Rapace, and Jared Harris all are back and are back to spellbind us. Sherlock Holmes: A game of Shadows is better than Sherlock Holmes (2009), to put simply. Go watch it, or you will miss a good, fun entertaining movie, even though the obnoxious detective is definitely more colorful than he was in the written versions.

Now to the details. This December-January has been a good time, in terms of movies. We got to see some truly engaging films like Adventures of Tintin, Puss in Boots, and Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol. Sherlock Holmes simply carries it forward.

To understand the story, one has to go back to 1890′s Europe, and Professor Moriarty, Holmes’s arch enemy is about to start the world war, and has been bombing the cities and Holmes is as usual stopping him with help from Jude Law as Watson. As seen before Sherlock Holmes in the movies is slightly funny, unlikely, sometimes silly and at times extremely sharp man, who has ofcourse his share of physicality and emotion, something that the original Holmes never bothered himself with. Robert Downy Jr as Holes is charming and engaging. As they run through green filtered screen,  Stephen Fry comes in as Mycroft Holmes. Looks like Ritchie as put on every character that ever was in the film. Irene Adler is gone pretty soon and in comes dark, gypsy card reader Noomi Rapace, even though she seems to have lesser to do than Rachel McAdams ( Irene Adler) did in the first installment.

The plot is convoluted to say the least, with Holmes speaking too fast at times, confusing the viewers even more. The slow motion action sequence is one of the best points of this film. Done to perfection and placed at tensed moments, these sequences consist of almost 45% of the fun of the movie. The sequences have been edited with sharp preciseness which is greatly commendable. Robert Downy Jr has truly sold this off perfectly. He is perfect as Guy Ritchie’s Holmes, quirky, crazy, childish, funny ( reminds a little of Iron Man, Tony Stark.. the other popular role he plays) and great in beating up people and taking up unlikely processes to reveal the truth.

Jared Harris needs special mention, simply because he is playing one of the best villains in history on English fiction. This character ( added with lights, dark backgrounds, wicked music) is subtle yet, ambitious and Harris acts with his eyes. The evil fanatic war-mongering villain comes alive to such an extent that at times, Robert Downy Jr seems a little shadowed.

The women had very little to do in this movie. Even then one has to wonder at the sheer screen presence of Noomi Rapace, her role is limited and so are the dialogues. Her character is edgy, with shades that keeps her at the borderline of the ‘wrong’ side.  Yet she is as eye-catching as she can be, and that has nothing to do with beauty. She has that rare quality of screen presence.  Still the film, inspite of Watson sacrificing bachelorhood, remains a film about the ‘guys’ fighting with eachother in every corner of the street.

About the film, here comes the complains..Apart from the name, Sherlock Holmes has nothing in common with the character, and in this film Holmes in numerous disguise, from chair to transvestite, somehow makes the character a pompous clown. It is understood that this film is directed at 20th century viewer and is born out of 20th century imagination, still, adding action and graphics make a good picture not a great movie. The way plot and characters have been played with, it is a wonder why Guy Ritchie why bothered to keep the names at all…just to provoke a guaranteed viewership? may be. There are characters in history of the popular culture that should not be played with and Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes is one of them.

If one can watch it, without remembering the original sharp, precise investigator, then Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows is afun movie to watch. We can only hope people do not forget the tall, dark, foreboding sharp investigator who lived in 221 Baker street for a clownish, action hero.