Oh, how we've missed you Holmes.

Rating: 8/10 (21 December 2011)

Sherlock Holmes is back; this time he is pit into a game of shadows against Professor Moriarty, admirably underplayed by Jared Harris. En route to locating Moriarty, Holmes and Watson are launched into a number of dangerous missions, from fighting Moriarty's men on a train to tracking the factory in Germany from which Moriarty had bought a large number of shares. All of the missions come complete with thrilling set pieces done the Guy Ritchie way – camera-work putting his effective overcranking and high speed photography on display with the bonus comic moments (the outfits Holmes has on, especially the one in the train fight sequence) as well as humorous dialogue. In a way, the comparison between this and the first film is similar to a comparison between Ritchie's earlier films Lock Stock and Snatch – because it worked the first time, Ritchie follows the same formula but the second time he attempts to give more of the humour and the action to the audience. That perfectly works in Sherlock Holmes 2, this is seriously good entertainment. I have read a lot of comments over the web where people are complaining that Ritchie's hasn't made something faithful to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's classic work. Yes. A more faithful adaptation for Doyle fans is the BBC series Sherlock, starring Benedict Cumberbatch. That should be seen for the die-hard fans of the great English detective, but for anyone looking for entertainment, which is the real purpose of this film, Sherlock Holmes 2 is one to watch.