Entertaining, but too much James Bond and not enough Sherlock

Rating: 6/10 (19 December 2011)

As you probably know, A Game of Shadows is the sequel to the 2009 blockbuster that left orthodox Conan Doyle fans incredibly angry and the rest of the movie-going crowd suddenly really attentive to the fact that Sherlock Holmes still exists. At the time, I was of the latter—but I took it upon myself to go back and read the original stories and watch classic interpretations of those stories (Jeremy Brett is still my favorite), and after becoming the former I can honestly say: Guy Ritchie's Sherlock Holmes is just not Sherlock Holmes.
Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law were fantastic in their roles, as always. Noomi Rapace was also great, as was Jared Harris as Moriarty. Overall, I can't say anything bad about the performance of the actors. They had the chemistry to make the story move and the characters come to life, and I enjoyed that part of the film.
The technical things and interpretation is where the problems arise. For the editor in me, there were technical things in the movie that I just found awkward. The first was how they introduced the title—in the first movie it was slick, perfectly timed, and in classic Sherlock Holmes style. In this oneit seemed so forced. Also, Guy Ritchie took way too many cues from The Matrix, because there was a ridiculous amount of slow-motion sequences almost back-to-back during action scenes.
The interpretation left me with mixed feelings. Professor Moriarty is the arch-nemesis of Holmes, after all. Ritchie was playing with the big guns now, not some random lunatic who thought he could use black magic. Who was that again? Oh yeah, Lord Blackwood (who has apparently vanished into thin air—in fact, the entire first movie seems to have vanished into thin air). For the most part, I was liked how the film portrayed Moriarty—he was smart, menacing, and genuinely Moriarty—a satisfying equal for Holmes. Their conversations were honestly more heart-pounding than any explosions and gunfights. I loved that the tension between them was so cerebral.
Mycroft, on the other hand, was slightly sketchy. I didn't really understand his role in the movie. He was kind of a snob and sort of lacked common decency in one scene (if you've seen it, you know which one I mean), and didn't have the relationship I expected him to with his brother. Speaking of which, Holmes didn't seem to know much about his brother, which was contrary to what happened in the stories. Therefore, my opinion is that Ritchie got the Sherlock-Mycroft relationship totally wrong.
Holmes himself is also questionable. His relationship with Watson is smarmy and sarcastic, but almost excruciatingly so. Their banter is too exaggerated. I like his wit, and he's arrogant and insensitive to the way a normal human being should act, which is true to the books, but he was sodramatic. Holmes was never dramatic. He was an almost-sociopath who lived for his work. He was only interested in the details of his cases and frankly half-hearted about saving the day. This Holmes thinks of himself as an action hero. Real Holmes hardly took credit. At the end, Holmes does something that Holmes would never do: he alters Watson's manuscripts to make them more dramatic. Conan Doyle fans know that Holmes hated Watson's stories and how they portrayed his cases as adventures. He only wanted the facts. Holmes isn't a Hollywood star. He's a subtle hero, and Guy Ritchie tried too hard to cater to audiences that in this era wouldn't pay to see a guy sit in his chair, pipe between his lips and violin underneath his fingers.
Watson is a swashbuckler, but a little too much so. Same as in the first film, Jude Law as Watson just makes him too heroic. He was capable and smart, but not like this. It just doesn't feel right. But I suppose, it's an excuse to put Watson in every action scene.
And thus, explosions and fist fights fill this film. They're okay in moderation, but by the fourteenth action sequence, I couldn't believe that Ritchie was trying to pass this as a Sherlock Holmes movie. There was too much firepower and not enough of the intellect that made Holmes a great detective. Just because Conan Doyle mentioned in one story that Holmes and Watson 'apprehended a suspect' doesn't mean that suddenly Watson gets to fire a cannon and Holmes gets to send a guy flying through a wall. It's too much. It's way, way too much.
I get the feeling that Ritchie realized this at some point, and tried to please the fans of the stories. (Of course we were all still going to see the film.) The running gag about Brighton was pleasing. The ode to the Reichenbach Falls scene was surprisingly good; that was the first time that I smiled and thought, This is Sherlock Holmes. The fact that Watson's monologue was exactly the one from the books was satisfying. Ritchie was actually trying to make a Sherlock Holmes movie.
But a couple strolls down memory lane for Conan Doyle fans couldn't save this film from being completely not Sherlock Holmes. It was a fast-paced, entertaining movie on its own, and I respect it for that. I enjoyed the film as an action-adventure, but only at face value. The Conan Doyle fan in me just can't accept this as even a remotely sensible interpretation of the world-famous detective. Sherlock Holmes in my mind is an eccentric human being who has intrigued people with the strange workings of his mind. He's just not a fist-fight brawler or a prankster who puts on lipstick and shoots his friend with blow darts. This Holmes is silly, ridiculous, and undignified. He disappoints on many levels.