You're drinking embalming fluid?

Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows

(2011)

The 2009 film was such a pleasant surprise that I had not a little foreboding about this. Everything about the publicity and trailers suggested a stir-and-repeat effort, attempting nothing new. I had low expectations for the original, and perhaps the same feeling this time did the film some favours. For the first 20 minutes or so, an interesting character development aside, this seemed to be really struggling. Labouring the goodwill built up last time by indulging itself in an extended sequence of Holmes-Watson banter and failing to muster any of the spark of the original.

Fortunately it kicks into gear following Holmes' first encounter with Moriarty, and an extended train sequence is replete with all the bro-mance and Guy Ritchie bombast that you'd expect, but also that flash of verve and excitement it so needed in the early scenes. Like the original, the plotting is at times a means to an action sequence, and the elements of deduction are very much sublimated to the need to keep things rolling. That said, a number of elements that are reused later are so deftly placed that when they are called back to you can't help but think they've been quite clever there. Noomi Rapace's gypsy is very much incidental, but this in itself is a positive as the filmmakers don't feel they need to overpower the plot with a love interest. I'd like to have seen more of Colonel Sebastian Moran, though, as his character was effectively used.

Of the regulars, Downey Jr is winningly energetic and Ritchie's camera work is very in synch with his take on Holmes. He and Law, despite the early sequences, have a fine repartee. I'm going to make a few Steven Moffat comparisons now; I think on balance I prefer this Holmes and Watson, because - as self-conscious in it's way as this depiction of the characters is - they're not weighed down with all the irritating tics and Moffat-every-voice dialogue. This is blockbuster cinema but it manages to retain an air of verisimilitude that the current TV series fails at.

Helping enormously in that regard is Jared Harris as Moriarty. If you'd asked who would come up with the best take on Moriarty, the BBC or a lowest common denominator brash Hollywood movie, you'd end up with the wrong answer (unless you'd seen the BBC version, that is, in which case there's likely superior home movie performances on youtube). Harris underplays his Moriarty superbly, completely the opposite of that little “I’m mad, me!”-voiced prat in Sherlock. And as a result you believe in the stakes involved. The final showdown between the two is vastly more satisfying than the TV series' Reichenbach "fall" because it combines all the elements of intellectual dueling between the two characters in a gripping, multi-layered scene. Which then out does itself by coming to a very snappy and satisfying resolution that is germane to the established style of storytelling.

While I'm on the subject of Moffat, two other points. What they do with Irene Adler's character here is extremely effective, and spotlights just what a low-rent, low-stakes media whore Moffat is in terms of the way he treats his characters. And Mycroft, as played by Stephen Fry, seems to cement the character as Holmes big gay brother in terms of modern takes; Fry's amusing in the role, but it feels like a "wheel on the guest star" turn; maybe in the US he's just seen as another supporting actor but Fry might as well have just stepped out of a QI filming session (albeit less attired - "Sherlie", indeed). Ironically, and though I'm loathe to say it, Mark Gatiss might have been a better fit.

But overall, far more enjoyable that the over-feted Sherlock -where every bit of dazzling inventiveness is then ruined by lazy characterisation and self-congratulatory dialogue. I'm looking forward to the third installment.

****1/2

Your Mickey Mouse is one big stupid dope!

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Other monks will meet their deaths here. And they too will have blackened fingers. And blackened tongues.

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Say hello to the Scream Extractor.

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No one can be told what the Matrix is. You have to see it for yourself.

The Matrix (1999) (SPOILERS) Twenty years on, and the articles are on the defining nature of The Matrix are piling up, most of them touching on how its world has become a reality, or maybe always was one. At the time, its premise was engaging enough, but it was the sum total of the package that cast a spell – the bullet time, the fashions, the soundtrack, the comic book-as-live-action framing and styling – not to mention it being probably the first movie to embrace and reflect the burgeoning Internet ( Hackers doesn’t really count), and subsequently to really ride the crest of the DVD boom wave. And now? Now it’s still really, really good.

All the world will be your enemy, Prince with a Thousand Enemies.

Watership Down (1978) (SPOILERS) I only read Watership Down recently, despite having loved the film from the first, and I was immediately impressed with how faithful, albeit inevitably compacted, Martin Rosen’s adaptation is. It manages to translate the lyrical, mythic and metaphysical qualities of Richard Adams’ novel without succumbing to dumbing down or the urge to cater for a broader or younger audience. It may be true that parents are the ones who get most concerned over the more disturbing elements of the picture but, given the maturity of the content, it remains a surprise that, as with 2001: A Space Odyssey (which may on the face of it seem like an odd bedfellow), this doesn’t garner a PG certificate. As the makers noted, Watership Down is at least in part an Exodus story, but the biblical implications extend beyond Hazel merely leading his fluffle to the titular promised land. There is a prevalent spiritual dimension to this rabbit universe, one very much

In a few moments, you will have an experience that will seem completely real. It will be the result of your subconscious fears transformed into your conscious awareness.

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Piece by piece, the camel enters the couscous.

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Maybe the dingo ate your baby.

Seinfeld 2.9: The Stranded The Premise George and Elaine are stranded at a party in Long Island, with a disgruntled hostess.

You ever heard the saying, “Don’t rob the bank across from the diner that has the best donuts in three counties”?

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Now In Full Color, with a Happier Ending

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