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DIRECTOR Guy Ritchie CAST Robert Downey Jr, Jude Law, Jared Harris, Noomi Rapace Back after its sell-out run in January, this highly entertaining sequel features great action, a charismatic relationship between Downey Jr and Law as Holmes and Watson, and a fiendish plot by Moriarty. (2011 USA 129 minutes) AUDIO DESCRIPTION AVAILABLE - Please contact the cinema in advance This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it Sherlock Holmes (Robert Downey Jr.) has always been the smartest man in the room... until now. There is a new criminal mastermind at large - Professor Moriarty (Jared Harris) - and not only is he Holmes' intellectual equal, but his capacity for evil, coupled with a complete lack of conscience, may actually give him an advantage over the renowned detective. When the Crown Prince of Austria is found dead, the evidence, as construed by Inspector Lestrade (Eddie Marsan), points to suicide. But Sherlock Holmes deduces that the prince has been the victim of murder, a murder that is only one piece of a larger and much more portentous puzzle, designed by Professor Moriarty. The cunning Moriarty is always one step ahead of Holmes as he spins a web of death and destruction, all part of a greater plan that, if he succeeds, will change the course of history. BBFC advice: Contains moderate violence Further Parental Advice "Breezing into their next case, Guy Ritchie, Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law unapologetically stick to the formula. This robust sequel doesn’t gaze intently at its navel, or require you to have boned up on a bewildering mythos or, God forbid, go darker. There is very little sense of personal growth at all in Holmes’ case. Events will sprawl from London to Paris, Germany and a well-known waterfall in the Swiss Alps, with the same gung-ho spirit of a steampunk Bond, while doffing its cap to Hitchcock and the Wachowski siblings. The set-pieces are a mix of marvels and overkill: with dick-swinging braggadocio the film keeps introducing bigger and bigger guns. What has changed is the villain. ... Downey Jr.’s antic Sherlock will still rattle the purist, but he is executing a worthwhile gambit: to both send up Arthur Conan Doyle’s solemnity and celebrate it. He remains a postmodern contraption: droll superhero (chief power: mind-mapping), wag, clown, geek and an old-fashioned romantic hero who ranks higher than the effects. Where Jack Sparrow sank beneath spaghetti plates of inedible plot, Downey Jr.’s libertine ’tec lives for the infernal case. The point is not to fret if you can’t quite catch the plot’s drift. Our view is Watson’s — you’re not supposed to have figured it out, leave that to Holmes. Ritchie’s witty technique of roving through Holmes’ brain waves — be they fight moves (of which there are an exuberant and slightly overbearing number) or swatches of uncanny detection — is now the primary visual mechanic. A breathlessly long-winded action sequence, as Watson tries to begin his honeymoon only for his best man to throw his wife off the train, becomes a Russian doll of Holmes’ ingenious schemes-within-schemes. Clockworking back and forth in time, these flo-mo montages of deduction are a riff about filmmaking itself — the ability to warp time and reshuffle story in the edit suite. Even more than its predecessor, the sequel plays on its high-wire contradiction: a big, dumb action movie about mind-boggling cleverness — a paradox compounded by the casting of know-it-all Stephen Fry as Mycroft Holmes, who plays Stephen Fry with aplomb. ... the true inamorata for Downey Jr.’s part-deranged Holmes remains Jude Law’s straight man — the sturdy Watson. It’s proving a decent role for the actor, who squeezes in a touch of sensitivity to the tension of a sensible man fighting the irresistible lure of adventure. Their bromance gathers steam, homoeroticism now less a subtext than extended routine in which Sherlock even dons full drag. While never giving in to parody, Game Of Shadows has the jovial detachment of self-mockery. Ritchie is convinced of something the ranks of blockbuster-makers seem to have forgotten — fun is not a dirty word. Verdict - A sequel confident in what it's about - bigger, better, funnier, without stretching the joke." UK RELEASE 16 December 2011 RUNNING TIME 129 minutes COUNTRY USA |
