Two years ago Greg McKegg Jersey Youth , when the celebrated consulting detective of Baker Street was yanked onto the big screen for the first time in the 21st century, a big divide separated the traditionalists resistant to accepting the idea of Sherlock Holmes as an East End fight club habitue and mostly younger audiences who found director Guy Ritchie slow-motion action moves completely cool. The argument quickly became a moot point, after Warner Bros.鈥?steam-punk-style action mystery grossed an astounding $524 million worldwide. With more of the same on view in Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, everyone will know where they stand ahead of time, meaning old fogies are duly warned and fans will happily return for more.
Unfortunately, Ritchie and his new scenarists, Michele and Kieran Mulroney, who co-wrote and directed Paper Man in 2009 Pavel Buchnevich Jersey Youth , largely eschew the sort of delicious cat-and-mouse game that could have maximized this face-off between two such worthy opponents, saving their only extended encounter for the climax. Instead, along with the prolonged drunken shenanigans that precede Watson wedding to Mary (Kelly Reilly) and the honeymoon train trip that follows, a great deal of time is consumed by their adventures with a gypsy fortune teller (Noomi Rapace, the star of the Swedish version of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo and its sequels) and the revolutionary circles she is able to help them infiltrate.
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What one left with, then, is an elaborate entertainment that whooshes along through the messy streets and posh clubs of 1891 London; aboard boats, trains, horseback and Holmes鈥?early horseless carriage along unpaved thoroughfares Chris Kreider Jersey Youth , through forests and over mountains; into the rarefied corridors of power in the capitals of Europe; onto the stage of the Paris Opera during a performance of Don Giovanni, and into warehouses and factories that already seem filled with enough arms to fight World War I, which Moriarty would be disappointed to learn is still more than two decades away rather than around the corner.
After quite a few tedious detours and distractions, when the film finally gets down to the business of a climax at a gathering of elite European diplomats in a precariously perched Swiss mountain castle, it becomes not half-bad. A clever assassination plot comes to a head while Holmes and Moriarty sit down to a game of chess as they articulate their differences, leading to a mighty struggle that does nothing if not set up a sequel.
Aside from the screenwriters Marc Staal Jersey Youth , the same core team from the first outing has been reassembled, making for an absolutely consistent look, sound and feel to the proceedings. Thanks to returning cinematographer Philippe Rousselot, production designer Sarah Greenwood, costume designer Jenny Beavan and a large effects crew, the images are gritty and densely packed Ryan Strome Jersey Youth , and static is a word Ritchie and editor James Herbert have never heard of. Hans Zimmer incorporates a good deal of his greatly effective score from the original into this one, with new elaborations as well.
With Watson marriage on the line, Downey and Law raise the level of their sparring a notch from last time; that their portrayals of these famous characters are so distant from the original conceptions has now been proven irrelevant, perhaps even a plus to modern audiences. Stephen Fry adds an amusing new flavor as Holmes鈥?outsized, politically connected brother, Mycroft. Harris is fine as Moriarty Jacob Trouba Jersey Youth , while Rapace gets no chance to show her previously established talent in her stereotypical gypsy role.
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Jude Law, Noomi Rapace, Jared Harris and Stephen Fry as Holmes鈥?brother Mycroft. I caught a screening last week and thought the sequel was a lot of fun and Harris makes a great Professor Moriarty. Definitely recommended. Anyway Mika Zibanejad Jersey Youth , hit the jump for what you can win and how to enter.