Sherlock Holmes: Game of Shadows Review
Jan. 6th, 2012 11:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kitsjaySo went to see Sherlock finally! Thoughts on it are under the cut; spoiler warning, naturally.
As the first movie suggested, the sequel was bound to focus entirely on Professor Moriarty. I will make an unpopular confession, that is I don't really enjoy the Moriarty stories as well as I do the others. To me, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was trying to create the perfect arch nemesis, but as much as I adore the man, I felt he relied much too heavily on talking about how brilliant he was without showing enough of it. He may be the Napoleon of Crime, but because he was so brilliant at it, we never got to see this true mastermind at work; they always vaguely disappointed me.
Still, I went with high hopes, since I enjoyed the first movie so much.
The most bothersome thing, which I will get out of the way immediately, was the overuse of stylistic shots. The deductions being slowed down were absolutely amazing in the first, because not only did we get to see all the tiny things in detail and how Sherlock added them all up, but it was also meant to convey that Sherlock's mind registered and pieced together all these facts so incredibly fast.
In this movie, we got to see the fight scenes and deductions slowed down, but they also felt it necessary to slow down the action scenes. One scene in particular seemed to drag on forever needlessly; not only was it slowed down to show each painstaking detail of loading a gun, checking the gauges, the soldier's faces, but it was just so completely useless. For one, it didn't even make sense to use the gun within the plot, but then to linger on it so lovingly was just annoying.
There were also scenes that were slowed down simply to "show emotion", except it ended up sucking most of the emotion out of the scene and just led to showing Jude Law looking uncomfortable and blank.
Let's talk about the plot, then.
The first amazed me because it was a new story. It was done fantastically well. I am a fan of the original stories, and loved the inclusion of tiny little details and lines from the books, while never having the plot ruined because I had "read that one". This one, the plot was...
Well, Scooby-Dooish, honestly.
It was just incredibly cliche. Moriarty is a simple war profiteer? And the ambassador angle was little more than a man in the mask.
It felt disappointing, as Moriarty so often does, because the problem with building up an arch nemesis so much is that you can never live up to the audience's expectations.
The "creating tension to start a war" has been used and used again, and it wasn't even done particularly well here. For one, there was never the "big reveal". One of the things I loved about the first one was never being able to guess the ending. I wavered between, "Surely they're not... are they going to do a supernatural one? No..." and the big reveal going throughout the entire movie to show how it was done is such an intrinsic part of the mystery, and Sherlock Holmes' mysteries especially. It's the sense that we've been given all the pieces, but only the great detective himself could put them all together.
This one had no such reveal, but constantly revealed facts the entire time.
There was no big mystery to solve, it was just... chasing down new leads, honestly.
It just didn't have the same "Aha!" moment that you want from a mystery movie.
It may sound like I didn't like the movie, which isn't true. Stephen Fry as Mycroft was brilliant, the women characters were astounding and my feminist side was jumping for joy, the dialogue was clever, and overall, I enjoyed it.
I just wouldn't say it's as good as the first.
As the first movie suggested, the sequel was bound to focus entirely on Professor Moriarty. I will make an unpopular confession, that is I don't really enjoy the Moriarty stories as well as I do the others. To me, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was trying to create the perfect arch nemesis, but as much as I adore the man, I felt he relied much too heavily on talking about how brilliant he was without showing enough of it. He may be the Napoleon of Crime, but because he was so brilliant at it, we never got to see this true mastermind at work; they always vaguely disappointed me.
Still, I went with high hopes, since I enjoyed the first movie so much.
The most bothersome thing, which I will get out of the way immediately, was the overuse of stylistic shots. The deductions being slowed down were absolutely amazing in the first, because not only did we get to see all the tiny things in detail and how Sherlock added them all up, but it was also meant to convey that Sherlock's mind registered and pieced together all these facts so incredibly fast.
In this movie, we got to see the fight scenes and deductions slowed down, but they also felt it necessary to slow down the action scenes. One scene in particular seemed to drag on forever needlessly; not only was it slowed down to show each painstaking detail of loading a gun, checking the gauges, the soldier's faces, but it was just so completely useless. For one, it didn't even make sense to use the gun within the plot, but then to linger on it so lovingly was just annoying.
There were also scenes that were slowed down simply to "show emotion", except it ended up sucking most of the emotion out of the scene and just led to showing Jude Law looking uncomfortable and blank.
Let's talk about the plot, then.
The first amazed me because it was a new story. It was done fantastically well. I am a fan of the original stories, and loved the inclusion of tiny little details and lines from the books, while never having the plot ruined because I had "read that one". This one, the plot was...
Well, Scooby-Dooish, honestly.
It was just incredibly cliche. Moriarty is a simple war profiteer? And the ambassador angle was little more than a man in the mask.
It felt disappointing, as Moriarty so often does, because the problem with building up an arch nemesis so much is that you can never live up to the audience's expectations.
The "creating tension to start a war" has been used and used again, and it wasn't even done particularly well here. For one, there was never the "big reveal". One of the things I loved about the first one was never being able to guess the ending. I wavered between, "Surely they're not... are they going to do a supernatural one? No..." and the big reveal going throughout the entire movie to show how it was done is such an intrinsic part of the mystery, and Sherlock Holmes' mysteries especially. It's the sense that we've been given all the pieces, but only the great detective himself could put them all together.
This one had no such reveal, but constantly revealed facts the entire time.
There was no big mystery to solve, it was just... chasing down new leads, honestly.
It just didn't have the same "Aha!" moment that you want from a mystery movie.
It may sound like I didn't like the movie, which isn't true. Stephen Fry as Mycroft was brilliant, the women characters were astounding and my feminist side was jumping for joy, the dialogue was clever, and overall, I enjoyed it.
I just wouldn't say it's as good as the first.
no subject
Date: 2012-01-07 09:23 am (UTC)But I totally agree with you on Moriarty just not being written well. He certainly came off rather psychotic at points, but even his misdirection of Holmes at the opera wasn't enough to make him seem suitably archvillanish. And the whole 'push Europe into war' plot was... yeah, cliché. I mean, if Moriarty was toying with Europe just for the giggles and because he could, I could buy that. But also because he'd profit from selling everyone weapons? That's just greedy.
And the way things were revealed along the way instead of in one big drop at the end as a testament to Holmes' genius. One of the things I kind of liked about the first movie was that I really couldn't tell how Holmes was getting his information, and I kept feeling like a bit of an idiot because I looked and looked and couldn't see what he saw. I was always a little put out for how dumb it made me feel, but at the same time it made Holmes look pretty smart. And then at the end, when everything fell into place my feeling of THAT WAS SO COOL outweighed the earlier blows to my ego. With the second movie, while I kind of liked being able to see how things happened... at the same time, there wasn't that air of mystery the first one had.
But yes. Stephen Fry was amazing and I thoroughly enjoyed Mary and Sim. I want to watch the movie again just for Mary's part of the train scene and Sim's fight at the beginning. Girls can be badass and feminine yay! Honestly, I'd rewatch the movie just for Mary and Sim. And Watson. Watson is always adorable.
no subject
Date: 2012-01-07 03:58 pm (UTC)Moriarty is one of those villains that just didn't work for me. He didn't seem to have any real goals, he was "brilliant" but as I said, we never got to really see any of that brilliance... and to make him just be a war profiteer was kind of a let-down.
Exactly! I think it would have benefited from maybe showing some little deductions along the way, then having an "aha" moment at the end; it would give the audience something to hang onto while not sacrificing that moment when it all comes together. I think this one just kind of ran out of steam (and clever deductions) before the confrontation scene.
Oh, they were just awesome! The fight scene with Sim, I fully expected her to pick up the champagne bottle and bean Sherlock with it instead (because that's sooo hilarious, amirite?) and was so incredibly impressed when she actually turned out to be badass. And Mary grabbing the gun and just coolly asking Watson to open the door--but then also having her kind of freaking out was just perfect. I really enjoyed the women in this one (which is kind of ironic, considering Sherlock's misogynistic tendencies!).
And I love Stephen Fry and was so glad he wasn't just a cameo--I would have liked to see more of him being amazing as far as the deductions go. The scene where he and Sherlock are going back and forth was hilarious, but the whole fun of the deductions is hearing how they arrived at them. That said, they mentioned the Diogenes Club and how no one really knows what he does but he's indispensable to the British government, so I did love it. ♥ Me wanting more is probably just me being greedy. ;)