Written by: Michele Mulroney & Kieran Mulroney
Starring: Robert Downey Jr., Jude Law, Noomi Rapace, Jared Harris, Eddie Marsan, Rachel McAdams
Rating: [2.5/5]
Too much of a good thing can end up spoiling any treat, which we see time after time when it comes to sequels in Hollywood. You take something that worked exactly as it should the first time but they try to recapture the same magic but don’t bring the appropriate story to the table in order to effectively execute their wish. Therefore you are left with something like Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows that attempts to up the stakes but mostly makes for a widely boring and uninteresting story.
With Moriarty (Jared Harris) plotting for something big that could cause reverberations, Sherlock Holmes (Robert Downey Jr.) seeks to find out what he has planned and put a stop to it. This includes interrupting Watson’s (Jude Law) honeymoon prematurely.
When you have someone as iconic as Holmes at the helm of your story, a man so brilliant and ahead of the game you need a villain who can at least match as an equal in intellect or firepower in order to make for a fair fight. Something this feature sought to introduce with Moriarty and in this area, the film definitively succeeds. It also helps when you cast Jared Harris in the role and let him have some fun playing a villainous character. He gives off this menacing vibe through the way he speaks and we know through the narrative he has the firepower to back it up with force. It sets up a good showdown between these two.
However, with all of the proper table setting, A Game of Shadows does not provide a worthy plot to match the showdown between these two. Some twistiness should be expected when watching a film centering on Holmes but some caution should exist when thinking about how much can be equally withheld and then revealed before the plot gets far too convoluted. Unfortunately, this area marks exactly where this feature beings to lose its footing as the plot becomes quite muddled and far too unfocused where all enjoyment dissipates and we’re left just trying to follow everything going on.
Additionally, this feature lacks a certain zip and punch the preceding film brought to the table and perhaps it came from the innovative approach it took to explaining how Holmes processes information. Unfortunately, these tactics proved quite tiring this second go-around in the story as they fail to leave an impression or bring anything necessarily new. This thus leaves us reliant on the story to provide something to fully pull us into the movie and we’ve already discussed why this feature did not deliver on that front either.
With all that said, along with the addition of Moriarty, the characters of this story and their casting allows for some enjoyment as Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law work exquisitely well together in these roles. These characters have had many actors take them on and bring them to life and these two really rise up the rankings on who did it best. Their chemistry together creates such goodwill for the movie because at the very least we get to see Holmes and Watson interact with each other and all of the witty banter they throw back and forth to each other. The underlying sexual tension could not be more palpable and does much of the heavy lifting much like it did in the previous film but this time they did not receive the necessary support structurally to make the entire project something worthwhile.
As with many sequels, imitating what came before does not guarantee the same type of success and this feature lands in the very large pile of examples of this. It allows us to spend time with these wonderful characters once again, which serves as a positive but it does not provide much else other than the addition of a great villain in Moriarty. One solution could have been having a conversation between Moriarty, Holmes, and Watson for two hours with their witty banter and it would have made something much more interesting and less convoluted than what we receive here. They could bring this iteration of Holmes and Watson back for another go-around but should be reserved should if they have something more engaging to do with them rather than what we endure here.
Films with Josh 
