Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows (2011)

Despite a change in writers, this sequel to the one released two years ago has director Guy Ritchie's Holmes-o-vision (warning, spoilers in that link) style all over it, and it's fast paced fun just like the other, with hand to hand combat, all the modern weaponry of 1891, and a few mild anachronisms (more spoilers). In my post on Sherlock Holmes I covered Ritchie, stars Robert Downey, Jr. (Holmes), Jude Law (Watson), Kelly Reilly (Mary), and Rachel McAdams (Irene Adler). This time we have additional cast members Noomi Rapace (the original Girl with the Dragon Tattoo) as a Gypsy, Stephen Fry (a comedian who worked with Hugh Laurie (better known now as House) on a show called Fry and Laurie (1987-1995), and a writer, my favorites of his acting gigs include A Fish Called Wanda (1988), Peter's Friends (1992), Jeeves to Laurie's Wooster in the TV series Jeeves and Wooster (1990-93), I.Q. (1994), the title role of Oscar Wilde in Wilde (1997), Gosford Park (2001), Tristam Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story (2005), and the voice of the Cheshire Cat, my favorite character in Alice in Wonderland) as Holmes' brother Mycroft, and Jared Harris (the son of actor Richard Harris, Jared has 64 acting credits in his 50 years of age, including as Lane Pryce on Mad Men, scary guys in the now-cancelled series The Riches and movies The Notorious Bettie Page (2005) as a photographer and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button as a sea captain) as the evil Professor Moriarty. Everyone performs admirably. I must admit, though, every time Mycroft Holmes used a nickname for his brother I wanted to say, "Don't call me Sherly!"

The new writers are actor Dermot Mulroney's brother and sister-in-law Kieran and Michele (their second and third feature scripts, respectively) and I didn't detect much change from the other team. I did notice some continuity errors with the cut on Sherlock's cheek appearing and disappearing, as well as Watson's limp, but perhaps I'm nitpicking.

Music is once again by the great Hans Zimmer (I wrote about him in Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides) and all of the tracks can be found on youtube, however they're not easy to get into order, because the titles are so long. If you like that sort of thing, as I do, you can start with this one and haphazardly jump around when it quits.

If you liked the first one, you'll like this, too.