Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows picks up close to where the last one left off. Holmes (Robert Downy Jr.) has spent an untold amount of time between films piecing together a continent wide conspiracy. With Watson (Jude Law) getting married, Holmes knows he has to finagle him into also being interested in the conspiracy. There have been bombings throughout Europe and Holmes concludes that his arch nemesis, Professor Moriarty (Jared Harris) is behind them. He safely stops one bomb just for the mark to be assassinated none the less by the hit man. During Watson’s bachelor party, Holmes sets out to collect more clues. Enter Noomi Rapace (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo) as Madam Simza, the soothsayer. Fighting ensues and a disastrous and drunk evening winds up with a disheveled Watson late for his wedding the following day. Holmes is used to being the smartest man in the chase until he tangles again with Moriarty. The professor is always two steps ahead and not shy of grand gestures to aid Holmes in meeting his maker even if innocents are hurt. The great reveal comes with Moriarty admitting that even if he didn’t start the world war he was fine taking the world over financially with supplying the weapons to maintain the wars’ destructiveness. Throughout the film, the history is slightly tweaked to fit the plot and help the audience make sense of it all. The climax and confrontation is set (where else would it be in a comic book style storyline) at the Summit Meeting between the nations.

Downy’s performance is successful in delivering the quirky, intelligent, animated, lovable performance that we received from the first film. With Law bringing his cynical, realistic outlook on life attitude back they are a match still made in heaven. There’s been some time since such a male pair shared such charisma and elegance on screen together. They both put their best feet forward. The only downside, for the writing more so than performance, is there was no depth given to Holmes’ character. There were instances where you know there is going to be more than his intellectual insanity but it fell away as quick as it appeared. Watson seemed to see through the exterior but it was never delved into further than him acknowledging non-verbally that it there. Frustratingly, there is an entire underdeveloped subplot with Watson being married at the end of their adventure that would have left Sherlock alone in the flat which could have been used to really define Sherlock’s need for companionship. The loneliness behind his smile should have been given some room to be explored. However, It was still a very well put together action film.

Noomi’s character should have been given more of a role than just a plot device as her talent was not used to the best of her ability. I guess when coming from such a spectacular trilogy maybe it was a personal choice to cross over to the American cinema with this type of role. She is not bad by any means and she still works well with what she was given but there should have been more provided for her character. When you take such a strong actor and give them a mediocre role it shadows their true talent. Harris kicks in the door with his performance. I have never loved and hated a character so much. He is a genius in his evil, super villain with pizzazz role. You began to root for him and his despicably absurd ploy for financial world domination. With what we know of Moriarty I was shocked that it look so long for the hand-to-hand combat to come. His devilishly handsome and overly confident self meets Holmes move for move to leave us holding our breath as they get close to the edge of the falls.

The entire film is action and adventure sprinkled with dialogue and great direction. There are moments like when they get to the Summit that seem a little dragged out to make up for too many fighting sequences. The attention to detail is lacking in the action sequences and some may never notice but I did. Sherlock Holmes resides in Britain for most of his life, so why is it that he has an Eastern fighting style? I understand it is what most movie goers these days expect but that little anachronism changes the way I see the Guy Ritchie franchise of the great detective. It is why there is so much action in the movie bringing the film more current than the actual setting to appease the audiences. If some of the extraneous scenes were dropped the two-hour-plus movie wouldn’t have felt more like three. Ritchie stayed true to his form with the slow motion this-is-what-went-down technique and flash backs to cover what had previously happened but was skipped temporarily in the film. Over all it was a very enjoyable film and I would say it is slightly better than the original but sets expectations higher for a third installment to set itself apart from this film.