Short Round: Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows (2011) **/*****
Guy Ritchie’s take on the Sherlock Holmes mythos is off-putting, there’s just no getting around that. Nobody really had a hankering to see the world’s most famous detective portrayed as a drugged out eccentric with an expertise in kung-fu. Especially in a modern looking action film shot like one of the million Matrix ripoffs that have come out since ’99. If you can push all of those bad feelings out of your head, however, Ritchie’s original Sherlock was a good enough time at the theater. It was fine as far as dumb action movies go, and the banter between two actors as charismatic as Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law elevated things from fine to pretty watchable. But, with this sequel, A Game of Shadows, Sherlock Holmes is starting to look like it’s wore out its welcome.
The main problem with Game of Shadows is that it’s just too long. And there’s so much talking that it starts to make your head spin. In the first film the banter was charming and fun, here it’s just oppressive. Characters go on and on, but they never seem to say much of any worth. At well over two hours, Game of Shadows starts to feel like a film that has gone off the rails. A half hour in you still aren’t sure what the conflict between Holmes and his arch villain Moriarty is, yet you’ve already sat through about a million wordy discussions dancing around the issue. I’d love to know how many pages the final draft of this script was, because it feels like it was a thousand.
Speaking of Moriarty, Jared Harris’ performance as the legendary villain was the one thing I really like about this movie. He projects capability and danger every second he’s on screen, and he lends a weight to the proceedings that is missing in every other aspect of the film. The character of Sherlock Holmes just isn’t one that’s well served to anchoring an action film, however, so Harris was battling an uphill battle. The problem with Holmes, conceptually, is that he always needs to be two steps ahead of the audience, and therefore we’re always left in the dark about what is happening and why. This works out okay for a mystery novel, which is a completely different type of media to consume; but in an action movie it’s unforgivable. We’re left rudderless and confused, and all of the slow motion kung-fu and Earth shaking explosions eventually start to feel more like abrasive noise than big screen thrills. About halfway through this thing the old guy sitting behind me started to snore pretty loud, and I have to say, I can’t blame him.
