Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows Movie Reviews

He has loomed large in the viewers’ imagination for over a century. Two years ago, British filmmaker Guy Ritchie showcased the fictional London sleuth in a revisionist spin which raked in mega-bucks at the box office. While it hardly covers any new ground, the inevitable sequel delivers a relentlessly kinetic romp. Circa 1891, a sinister super-villain (Jared Harris) aims to ignite a world war. Not to worry, though. The titular detective

Here is a film that needs a large dose of Ritalin [a psychostimulant drug] to calm down its attention deficit disorder. The director Guy Ritchie brought us a hyperkinetic version of Sherlock Holmes in 2009, but he has gone into overdrive with this sequel. The result is a bloated storyline that is far from elementary, my dear reader. Once again, Robert Downey Jr is Holmes, and Jude Law is Dr Watson, but any connection with Conan Doyle’s characters has been severed

Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows sees the eccentric human bloodhound (Downey Jr) and Afghan war veteran Doctor John Watson, his companion and chronicler, in a race against time to undo the evils of Professor James Moriarty (Harris). The distinguished mathematics scholar by day, whose presence was hinted at in the first film, is on a mad quest to do in diplomats from major European nations in order to plunge Europe into a World War with intent to profit

Robert Downey Jr is currently carrying two movie franchises - the Marvel Iron Man proto-Avengers thing for Paramount and the brawling steampunk Sherlock Holmes series for Warner Brothers - so it is perhaps understandable that he is showing a touch of fatigue. In the new Holmes adventure, A Game of Shadows, his imperiousness is hard to distinguish from boredom, and he seems to be in a hurry to spit out his lines, take his lumps, throw his punches

I sympathise with the appeal of sequels. Good sequels raise the bar, elevating the stakes to make it more fun than the first film. Unfortunately, Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows is not one of those. Guy Ritchie's bigger budgeted follow up to 2009's Sherlock Holmes is a poorly done rehash that uses plot points as excuses to move from one piece of unoriginal slow motion fight choreography to the next. The ultra-slow-motion bullet shots are wow-inducing effects

Sherlock Holmes 2 review: India Biz rating: 2/5. What’s Good: The engaging action scenes; the scenes of one-upma...