"Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows" Review

I caught the new Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows on Friday.  If you want the one line version, here it is:  I liked it a bit more than the first Sherlock Holmes.

For a spoiler-free longer version, let me say that it's a bit smarter than the first Sherlock Holmes, it sticks closer to its source material, and that while I still don't consider it truly "Holmes" in the sense that I feel that a proper Sherlock Holmes story should have a certain feel that the Downey Jr. versions have never even attempted to replicate, they are both still entertaining films.  Well done Robert Downey Jr. action/comedies are worth seeing, regardless of premise, and both Sherlock Holmes films are that.

Still, they fail to me as Holmes movies, so if you're a big Sherlock Holmes fan, you'll need to turn that part of your brain off to enjoy them.  It's ironic that while both Sherlock Holmes and Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows are period pieces set in the Victorian era, and the BBC series Sherlock is set in modern day, the latter feels much more like a proper Holmes story than either of the former.  Sherlock proves, I think, that it isn't horsecarts and steam engines that make Holmes, it's the attitude and atmosphere of the piece, and that's something that Sherlock gets that the Sherlock Holmes movies do not.

Or perhaps it is more fair to say that while the creators of A Game of Shadows may understand what makes a good Holmes film, they also know what makes a good Downey Jr. action/comedy, and they've chosen to focus on the latter instead of the former.  And hey, they made $39.6 million dollars in their opening weekend, so they may even be correct in their choice.

The rest of this review, and the comments section, will contain SPOILERS after the poster.

SPOILERS ahoy!

This movie reminds me of Casino Royale, in that they're both adaptations of written work that, due to the length of the original material, requires new material to grow into a feature length film.  In the case of Casino Royale it was to expand a short novel into a movie.  As the novel starts with Bond arriving at the Royale to gamble against Le Chifre, the filmmakers created the entire first half of the film out of whole cloth to make it so that Bond is the cause of Le Chifre's money problems in the first place.  That worked for me.

In A Game of Shadows, the problem was to transform Arthur Conan Doyle's 7,158 word short story The Final Problem into a full movie.  The thing of it is, by the time the story begins and Watson gets involved in The Final Problem, all the interesting stuff has already happened.  Holmes has tracked down Professor Moriarity, uncovered the evidence of his crimes, had his threatening conversation with the man, gone to the police with the evidence, and survived three assassination attempts.  All he needs Watson for is to give him a little back-up as he flees the country to escape Moriarty's wrath.  There's a chase scene as they get out of London, then the final confrontation between Holmes and Moriarity at Reichenbach Falls.

A Game of Shadows compromises by having Holmes already done some of the legwork, but requiring Watson's help to actually unravel Moriarty's schemes.  So, like in Casino Royale, we have a lot of invented material before the movie catches up with the short story.  In this case, however, the short story material only comes in for the last few minutes, and even that is heavily modified.

Still, as a feature length version of the unusually talky and yet short text that is Final Problem, I think that the filmmakers did a decent job with A Game of Shadows, noting of course my earlier objections to it being considered a true Holmes film in the first place.  It is hard not to fall back on the old pornography definition of "I know it when I see it" in cases like this, so let me try to explain why I don't consider these films "true" Holmes films.  In short, I don't think they take Sherlock Holmes seriously.

Granted, there are moments of seriousness, usually when Holmes is making a big reveal about how clever he is, and especially at the end of the film.  But for the most part, Holmes eccentricities, especially his inventiveness and way with people, are used for comedic rather than dramatic effect.  Which is why I talk about the different needs of a real Sherlock Holmes story and an action/comedy.  In the former, you are expected to be drawn in by the amazing things that Holmes can do.  In the latter, you laugh at them.  If you're not taking Holmes seriously, it's not Sherlock Holmes at all.

My only other primary complaint was the way they killed off Rachel McAdam's Irene Adler.  McAdams and Downey Jr. have excellent chemistry, much more than either he or Jude Law had with Noomi Rapace, and Adler's death early in the film was a disappointment.  I know why they did it, to set Moriarity up as dangerous and to make his later threats against the Watsons credible, but it still felt like a waste of an excellent character to me.

I do appreciate, however, the way that A Game of Shadows manages to avoid the sequel trap.  Unlike, say, Men in Black II, A Game of Shadows manages to feel less like a repetition of the first movie so much as it is a natural progression from it.  Watson is getting married, Holmes has made progress on tracking down Moriarity, and so on.  Arguably, the two Holmes movies feel like parts one and two of the same story rather than the original and the sequel.  That's to their credit.

Overall they did a good job with this film, and I enjoyed it.  If there's a Sherlock Holmes III, I'll probably go see it.  If you liked the first Sherlock Holmes there's no reason not to go see Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows.