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'Holmes' runs out of ideas
By Christy Lemire |
December 30, 2011, Friday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
ROBERT Downey Jr. and Jude Law bicker and banter and bob and weave with significantly diminishing returns in this sequel to the 2009 smash hit "Sherlock Holmes."
Director Guy Ritchie once again applies his revisionist approach to Arthur Conan Doyle's classic character, infusing the film with his trademark, hyperkinetic aesthetic and turning the renowned detective into a wisecracking butt-kicker. But what seemed clever the first time around now feels stale; a lot of this is due to the gray color scheme, which smothers everything in a dreary sameness that saps tension from the film.
While Downey is more than capable of tossing off impish quips - he's based an entire career on being charmingly subversive - his heart just doesn't seem to be in it. Sure, he gets a couple of funny lines here and there, and some of his wardrobe changes are good for a laugh, but it's as if the material just isn't challenging him. And that's a shame, since this time we meet Holmes' most famed foe.
"A Game of Shadows" finds Downey's Holmes facing off against brilliant super-villain Professor Moriarty (Jared Harris), who's cooked up a scheme to pit various European nations against each other in hopes of benefitting from the demand for arms.
Holmes must stop him with the help of his sidekick, Dr Watson (Law), who's newly married and not so gung-ho about such wild antics anymore. And it shows in the script from Michele and Kieran Mulroney as well as in the performances; Law gets little to do beyond functioning as the skeptical straight man.
Noomi Rapace tags along for some reason as a Simza, a gypsy fortune teller looking for her missing brother. Ostensibly this is because the filmmakers felt the need to inject a female figure as part of their adventures, and the saucy Rachel McAdams, who played Holmes' love interest in the first film, gets knocked out of the picture early. But the formidable presence Rapace displayed in the original Swedish "Girl With the Dragon Tattoo" and its sequels goes to waste.
Ritchie falls into the trap of relying too heavily on the same super-slow-motion visual effects he used in the first film: sequences in which Holmes can foresee how a physical showdown will play out, narrate it blow-by-blow, then take part in it in sped-up fashion. It's cool once or twice; not 10 times.
Not that criticism matters: The ending of "A Game of Shadows" clearly sets up a third film in the series.
Director Guy Ritchie once again applies his revisionist approach to Arthur Conan Doyle's classic character, infusing the film with his trademark, hyperkinetic aesthetic and turning the renowned detective into a wisecracking butt-kicker. But what seemed clever the first time around now feels stale; a lot of this is due to the gray color scheme, which smothers everything in a dreary sameness that saps tension from the film.
While Downey is more than capable of tossing off impish quips - he's based an entire career on being charmingly subversive - his heart just doesn't seem to be in it. Sure, he gets a couple of funny lines here and there, and some of his wardrobe changes are good for a laugh, but it's as if the material just isn't challenging him. And that's a shame, since this time we meet Holmes' most famed foe.
"A Game of Shadows" finds Downey's Holmes facing off against brilliant super-villain Professor Moriarty (Jared Harris), who's cooked up a scheme to pit various European nations against each other in hopes of benefitting from the demand for arms.
Holmes must stop him with the help of his sidekick, Dr Watson (Law), who's newly married and not so gung-ho about such wild antics anymore. And it shows in the script from Michele and Kieran Mulroney as well as in the performances; Law gets little to do beyond functioning as the skeptical straight man.
Noomi Rapace tags along for some reason as a Simza, a gypsy fortune teller looking for her missing brother. Ostensibly this is because the filmmakers felt the need to inject a female figure as part of their adventures, and the saucy Rachel McAdams, who played Holmes' love interest in the first film, gets knocked out of the picture early. But the formidable presence Rapace displayed in the original Swedish "Girl With the Dragon Tattoo" and its sequels goes to waste.
Ritchie falls into the trap of relying too heavily on the same super-slow-motion visual effects he used in the first film: sequences in which Holmes can foresee how a physical showdown will play out, narrate it blow-by-blow, then take part in it in sped-up fashion. It's cool once or twice; not 10 times.
Not that criticism matters: The ending of "A Game of Shadows" clearly sets up a third film in the series.
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