Jared Harris: "I'mThe Bishop!"

Rating: 10/10 (28 August 2012)

Guy Ritchies direction of this film, and its close relationship to a Chess game, brings to mind Jared Harris' last words as the character "David Robert Jones" in the Season 4 Finale of Fringe: And that too refers to a Chess game, where to lose a valuable player is a trade-off to a winning game. In that episode bad Guy Leonard Nimoy as "William Bell" sacrifices Harris' Character for an upper hand advantage over his opponent, Walter "Bishop."
And just as Harris plays evil genius "Jones" in Fringe, he takes on the role of Moriarty without bringing any leftovers to this movie from that TV role. Even so, the two disparate characters do have many striking similarities. Both evil geniuses, both extremely polite and almost likable in a way, and both doomed.
The Beginning of this film has Rachel McAdams once again playing Irene Adler for the last time. Robert Downey Jr/Holmes is a mess as usual, his housekeeper Geraldine James refers to his diet of tobacco and coffee with a side of Cacao Leaves and shots of Formaldehyde. Once again, things that are shown in a passing way in the opening scenes become major plot elements: Holme's "Urban Camouflage" and his new Adrenaline injections.
Stephen Frye emerges as "Mycroft Holmes"-"Sherlock Holmes Smarter Brother." Holmes, Watson (Jude Law) and Mycroft indulge in a night of debauchery intended as a "Bachelor Party" for Watson (Which Holmes as usual seems to have forgotten about, but not really), who is still going to marry, Mary. But Holmes uses the club as an opportunity to meet Noomie Rapace as "Madam Simza Heron" who has something to do with a letter he intercepted from Adler before McAdams stopped being Adler. Madam Simza is looking for her long lost brother Rene, but a Cossack is in the ceiling, waiting for an opportunity to assassinate her. He is foiled by Holmes in the "Acrobatic" part of this film.
In the first film, we were introduced to "HolmesAVision" and that is put into play here, with the added change of showing how Holmes does not always guess correctly what is going to happen next.
Watson does indeed get married to his "Mary" (Kelly Reilly) before the end of the first act, but their nice honeymoon trip to Brighton is interrupted by Moriarty's Assassins. From there, we go to Paris, and discover an assassination disguised as a bombing, and from Paris to Switzerland and Reichenbach Falls- And we all know if we have read the books what happened there.
This film is very loosely based on "The Final Problem" which was to be the very last Holmes story ever written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, fortunately for us it was not and Holmes was brought back for "The Hound of The Baskervilles" and other stories.
A method for Holmes to survive the "falls" had to be concocted, and it was tossed in to the story as an apparent non essential early in the film. The fact that I did not guess this gadget is a compliment to Guy Ritchie's ingenious way of hiding things in plain sight.
As an avid fan of the Basil Rathbone Holmes films of the 30's and 40's, and intrigued by some of the treatments of Holmes from the 70's and 80's, I was pleased with this take on the character. I liked both films made by this company so far, and if there is a third one, I am hoping the franchise stays with Guy Ritchies very capable hands.
Kieran Mulroney and wife Michelle were a great writing team, captured the flavor of the first Ritchie film. Kieran had the distinction of playing "Benzan," An Alien "Prince" in "Star Trek: The Next Generation" in a second season episode of that show.