Sherlock Holmes: A game of shadows

Well, me and the girlfriend decided we’d better see the new Sherlock Holmes movie.  The first was exciting enough but I’ve always enjoyed Professor Moriarty and was looking forward to it.  There are highs and lows with each movie but I left the theatre feeling profoundly moved by this movie.  Not only was the story griping and intense (but it probably won’t age well), the cinematography was insanely beautiful!  I couldn’t stop raving about it.  It felt like a combination of Steam-punk, Sherlock Holmes, and the Matrix.  The detective work was done well enough but there didn’t seem to be much in terms of “reveals” in this film.  Watson‘s role felt like it has evolved since the previous film and highly compliments the character of the novel.  Overall, fun film, go see!

I want to talk about the cinematography first because it had the greatest impact.  There is a scene where our heroes are running from German gun-fire and heavy artillery.  The scene seemed to stretch on forever and it felt completely different from anything I’d seen.  They had shots where the actors head remained in the center of the shot while they were running and it really caught me by surprise.  They did quick transitions from normal to slow motion all over the place and it was really something to see, bullets flying as the actors looked stationary due to their relative speeds.  It was a fantastic scene and seemed so fresh to see something of this caliber.

Other than that, there was a recycling of the previous movie’s story-telling techniques.  They showed Sherlock’s pre-combat situation assessment a few more times.  It was something I thought they should’ve done more in the first movie and I guess the producers felt the same way.  In this movie it was really close to overdone but they also had a bit of fun with it.  During the second sequence the actual take-down was interrupted by our main heroine throwing a knife at him which was sort-of predictable from intuition.  I was expected as the lady was sitting there, had a guarder belt knife and knew the assassin was in the rafters, not a tough connection to make.  


One thing I had a hard time with was the ramping they did with all of the technology/transitions.  I don't know that it was overly used or not, but the sounds that they used during each of these scenes were incredibly grating. The gears, the loading gun chambers, and the ropes and pulleys are all given these incredibly loud and jerky sound effects that after the 5th occurrence were starting to make me feel uncomfortable and I'm a big fan of things mechanical.

Watson, played by Jude Law, gave an interesting performance.  Sherlock, Robert Downey Jr., relied heavily on his partner in this flick and for the most part Watson kicked a lot of ass.  He seems to be an expert marks-man in these movies and they went to great lengths to show how Sherlock and Watson complement each other.  Moriarty is played by Jared Harris and he does a diabolical job of bringing life to the character.  I especially enjoyed Sherlock and Moriarty’s interactions; they’re both on the same level in so many ways, constantly playing each other.  The supporting cast did a fine job as nothing really sticks out in my mind as poorly conveyed through them.  One thing that occurred to me later on is that Moriarty has a Watson equivalent where he’s an ex-army discharged sharpshooter as opposed to an army medic.  So it’s a good vs evil in a battle of wits and the war-machine.

There were some things that stood out though.  There seemed to be a lack of big reveals in this.  I think that Sherlock novels have this way of explaining all loose ends and they didn’t seem to accomplish this in the movie version.  How does Moriarty get a restaurant full of people to simple get up and walk out of the room during lunch time with Irene Adler, (Rachel McAdams)?   Are they all part of his personal crew?  Does he own the restaurant?  It seems like such a big event for a simple restaurant as Moriarty could easily have had his variety of trained assassins kill her through other means; this over-the-top scene came off as strange.  But maybe that’s just Moriarty being his whacky crazy self!

Why does Sherlock conclude that he won’t be able to beat Moriarty at the end of the movie?  Maybe alone he realizes he can’t beat him in hand to hand combat so he concludes that the only way to defeat Moriarty is to pull him off the edge with himself.  Ok, that’s intense, but a moment before he completes the execution Watson comes into the picture.  Sherlock’s conclusion should then change as Watson would surely even the odds.  Sherlock then “dies” in defeating Moriarty but it is shown only a minute later (the length of the funeral scene) he was whimsically, completely fine.  The only explanation being that he had a compressed oxygen breathing device... but that’s not an explanation!  They fell off a huge waterfall in the middle of winter wearing formal attire and all Sherlock needed was a can of air… to breath under water? Would the oxygen prevent injury from falling?  Who knows!

When they’re fighting on the train that was headed to Watson’s honeymoon destination (Brighton?) they get into a huge gun-fight where the entire half of the train is blown off.  The scene ends with them sitting at the back of the train as it continues towards its destination.  Who is operating this train that he doesn't notice?  If that many cars are removed from the train, you would feel the change in load!  Not just that but the noise of the guns would’ve been hard to miss along with the complaints of the 1^st class passengers having been removed from their apartments (1st class are the first to complain).  This isn’t the first time something like this has been shown in a movie; they do this all the time.  I just find it funny that train operators are so oblivious.  To be fair, maybe it’s perfectly valid, maybe those old engines were so heavy and the vibrations so fierce that one operating it would be virtually oblivious to anything happening outside the engine room. 

When I saw the first movie I was a bit nonplussed about this new take on Sherlock.  Sherlock Holmes novels are so dignified in their nature and the reader is spending much of their time attempting to figure out what’s going on, guessing who could be behind this and what their motives could be.  In these movies I never had time to think, it was simply one event after another and I found myself strapped in and trusting in Holmes’ judgment without using any of my own.  I remember being like, “Holy shit!  That’s crazy!” at the end of some of the Holmes stories as things became clear and how Holmes was on top of it all.  This movie was more of a spoon-feeding detective action movie and the reveals weren’t all that intense.


I enjoyed the romance between Addler and Holmes in the previous movie but Addler’s part in this was very short-lived.  Whether Addler does officially die in this is hard to follow, Moriarty says she succumbed quite instantly to a rare form of Tuberculosis but we don’t really see her die.  The most we see is her fall onto a table as she collapses but she seemed to be coughing and simply immobilized.  Moriarty could easily have been playing Holmes (and us), making him think her dead in an attempt to unhinge him but other than that and Holme’s farewell handkerchief throwing-off-the-boat we don’t seem to do the character justice.  As it’s an open ending it wouldn’t been surprising to see her in the next film (if they make one).  They could’ve left it open to simply allow for the possibility without having to really commit to including her.

Overall, the movie was fun and only slightly intellectually stimulating.  I’d recommend it if you’re looking for something for eye candy and witty banter.  Robert Downey Jr. seems to be cinematic gold these days and lights up the screen whenever he’s on.