Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows
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The story goes that Warner Bros. was so impressed with Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes reboot in 2009 — it grossed more money than all of Ritchie’s previous movies put together in the U.S. and made a staggering $524 million worldwide — that they pulled him off his next project to strike while the iron was hot and get this sequel made as quickly as possible. (Disclosure: Warner Bros., as with TIME, is part of TIME Warner.)
And just as important as getting Ritchie back on board for Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows was signing up Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law, whose light banter as Holmes and Dr. Watson was surprisingly deft (plus there was fun to be had with all the homoerotic hints).
This time around, a spate of anarchist bombings have ripped through Europe (an eerily prescient plot point), with Holmes coming across a letter that leads him to a mysterious gypsy girl (Noomi Rapace) and Professor Moriarty (Jared Harris). And never mind the alleged love between our two main players, the love-in from the critics is still wildly on the sequel’s side. “Even more than its predecessor, the sequel plays on its high-wire contradiction: a big, dumb action movie about mind-boggling cleverness,” writes Empire, and that’s meant to be a compliment.
“A Game of Shadows assures us that escapism is good, that mischief must be celebrated,” concludes the Guardian. “Holmes and Watson are happy and their escapades play out with such grace and brio that the fun is infectious.” Only The Hollywood Reporter (at time of writing) has taken against the film and even that’s not a whole-hearted thumbs down: “After quite a few tedious detours and distractions, when the film finally gets down to the business of a climax … it becomes not half-bad.” Will there be a third installment? At this point, it’s surely elementary, my dear Watson.
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