SHERLOCK HOLMES: A GAME OF SHADOWS (Ritchie, 2011) - Ah, the power of lowered expectations. Also: holy homereoticism, Batman*! I had some beers to increase my chances of enjoyment of this one, only got home half an hour ago and it’s one in the morning - so I hope you’ll excuse the scattered nature (and overabundance of parentheses) of this post. Anyway, the movie’s overlong, like so many these days (a film like this should be 90 minutes, 100 tops), highly incoherent (using a huge explosion to cover up that you shot someone seems a tad redundant, for instance, don’t you think?), and I’m still not convinced this version of Holmes was really necessary (give me the BBC show any day), but I can’t deny it’s a certain kind of goofy fun (I liked the gag with the cannon), and while the chaotic fight scenes are still bothersome, Jared Harris’ Moriarty is a better villain that whoever Mark Strong (who I adore otherwise) played in #1. I could complain how Downey is wasting his talents - but I’m not even entirely sure he is, since I can’t think of anyone else who could have made this Holmes tolerable.
Sidenote: after MIDNIGHT IN PARIS and HUGO, this featured the third recreation of Paris in another time of the year. Trend?
*feel like I’ve made that quip before. If so, sorry.
