Dull Retread

Rating: 5/10 (1 May 2012)

I liked Guy Ritchie's first Sherlock Holmes movie, even though it had so little to do with Sherlock Holmes that one suspects the writer learned everything about the original from half-listening to a friend describe a story he'd read 20 years ago. But if you took it as a movie about characters that just happen to have names like Holmes and Watson but are otherwise their own thing, it was pretty decent.
That cannot, alas, be said for the sequel, which is just plain dull. The movie lacks, for the most part, the intriguing flirtation between Holmes and Irene Adler, instead bringing in some strikingly bland characters to populate its muddled story. The direction seems unnecessarily gimmicky even compared to other Ritchie films, and while I wouldn't describe the movie as a *huge* waste of two hours, it is certainly two hours I could have spent in a better fashion.