Missing all the intrigue and light hearted fun of its predecessor, Game of Shadows is quite a mess.

Rating: 6/10 (13 June 2012)

Missing all the intrigue and light hearted fun of its predecessor, Game of Shadows is quite a mess. While fun at times with plenty of jokes and little things to like here and there, it never seems a cohesive whole. More importantly, it never seems like a Sherlock Holmes movie.
From the start (actually, before the start) we know who our nemesis is: Professor James Moriarty. A fiendish name accompanied by a wonderfully devilish performance by Jared Harris. That's no problem. What is the problem is that his duel with Holmes seems geared more towards action scenes than a well paced mystery. Holmes fights in slow mo, dodges cannon shells in a forest, is skewered by a large industrial fish hook, and survives a flurry of machine gun fire in a train. This movie is a victim of sequelitis: it knows it has to be bigger and badder, but doesn't know how to do it while keeping the core content the same.
Go to http://thethreeacts.wordpress.com/ to read the complete review!