'Sherlock Holmes' sequel better than the original
Reviewer's Rating ★★★
The second Guy Ritchie-directed Sherlock Holmes movie starring Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law is much better than the first. The trio first collaborated for 2009’s Sherlock Holmes, a brutal, frantic, loud jackhammer of a movie that lacked style and substance.
The new Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows tells a smoother, richer story plucked from world history; has a cool-headed villain and opponent for Holmes to match wits against; a beguiling gypsy woman who becomes Holmes’ ally; better-choreographed action; and Downey and Law together again in cracking form.
The Holmes who emerges from A Game of Shadows remains an unkempt little man with a spouselike devotion to his friend and partner in crime-solving, Dr. John Watson. While Holmes’ eccentricity, experiments and substance-taking keep him from the normal world for extended periods, Ritchie and Downey all in all cast him as a likable rascal. Yes, he wears bad disguises worthy of Inspector Clouseau, but he’s still an indispensable force for good and, perhaps, his substance abuse can be written off as research.
Amplifying the crimes and mysteries that Holmes’ creator, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, devised for his great 19th century detective, A Game of Shadows sends the detective on another quest to thwart a plot designed to secure global power. The resulting action is thunderously big, essentially a preview of World War I. And James Bond-style, the investigation takes Holmes and Watson to international locales. Ritchie directs with his customary energy and flair, albeit more focused than usual.
It’s 1891. Bombs are exploding in Paris, Strasbourg and Vienna. Men of wealth and power are dying sudden deaths. France and Germany are at the edge of war. The explosions — clandestine, mass-casualty destruction of the kind that later will be named acts of terrorism in the 21st century — are universally thought to be the work of anarchists. Holmes, as always, has a different view.
When Watson calls on Holmes, the detective is drinking formaldehyde and lamenting his friend’s pending marriage. A mission calls. “It is our last adventure, Watson,” Holmes says. “I intend to make the most of it.”
But Watson says marriage takes precedence over another adventure. Or so Watson believes. The insistent, scheming Holmes succeeds in drafting his old friend for another romping criminal pursuit.
All heroes need an oily villain to highlight their heroism. Holmes has one in Professor James Moriarty. A red-bearded Jared Harris co-stars as Moriarty, playing him in deliciously understated style. A villain who has no need to hide, mathematical genius Moriarty is a well-respected member of the Cambridge University faculty. He’s well-connected, too, and on no one’s enemies list. Only Holmes is on to this masterfully manipulative academic.
“If we can find him and stop him, it will prevent the collapse of Western civilization,” Holmes says. “No pressure.”
While Rachel McAdams returns briefly as Holmes’ shady lady friend Irene Adler in A Game of Shadows, Swedish actress Noomi Rapace — the original girl in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo — is Holmes’ new, primary female cohort. Playing a sultry, knife-wielding gypsy fortune teller who shares the action with Holmes and Watson, Rapace draws the camera, and the audience, to her. In her first English-speaking role, she’s mesmerizing. And for additional comic relief, extra dry, Stephen Fry shows up as Holmes’ behind-the-scenes brother, Mycroft.
A rare example of a sequel that’s better than the original, Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows suggests that Downey, Law and Ritchie would do well to go another round.