January 2^nd, 2012

Review: 6/10 Can of Whoop Ass

Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows

I was very much a fan of the first Sherlock Holmes movie starring Robert Downey Jr. as the title character. I appreciated his repartee with Jude Law’s affable Dr. Watson and the playful way the film dealt with dark plots and mass murder. That film succeeded, in my mind, because it was character driven, regardless of the complicated plot the characters existed within. It felt reasonable to anticipate a decent sequel – after the first film guaranteed it would exist – because the characters could be relied upon, regardless of where the next story might lead.

Evidence: everyone hated The Hangover 2 because the plot was exactly the same. But I would argue that what people hated most about that sequel was that the repetition of the plot exposed how stale the characters were. Allan wasn’t quite as funny going through the same motions again. The Hangover – the original – depended on an inventive story. It was plot driven. The second film put the exact same ingredients into the recipe, but the dish didn’t taste as good – it lost the flavor of surprise that is so critical to effective storytelling. In A Game of Shadows, I was anxious to see the good doctor and Sherlock back together; I didn’t really care where they went or what happened to them. Therefore the sequel really couldn’t miss, unless Downey and Law decided to change things up for no apparent reason. And if it missed at all, it wasn’t by much – solely because of Watson and Holmes.

While the first Sherlock Holmes movie involved an intricate, clockwork plot of ancestral magic and secret societies, the sequel widened the scope while simplifying the method. The evil Professor Moriarty’s plot is simple: instigating war to make money selling arms when that war happens. A modern day conspiracist might deem Moriarty nothing more than a 19^th century Dick Cheney. Moriarty’s plot is made to look more complicated than that, but that is more a necessitation of the medium of film. Sherlock has to unravel a plot that takes about two hours of screen time to get through. To make that possible, he has to go to Paris and fail to stop a bomb which will allow for the peace summit whereby Moriarty can assassinate a figurehead and start war. But really, Moriarty could have just gone after the figurehead immediately and made it look like an act of war (he even admits that he could probably just wait a while and a war would happen anyway). But it’s the movies. Sherlock has to move around and get in and out of tricky situations, like a frivolous chase scene during Watson’s bachelor party – a prolonged ordeal that no one seems to want to get involved with, though there are hundreds of people around, and ends with the assassin getting kicked into some body of water, where he apparently dissolves like the Wicked Witch of the West and is seen no more.

Later, Holmes and Watson and a pack of gypsies cross into Germany to visit Moriarty’s weapons manufacturer to…to…to…well I’m not really sure what they were fixing to do there, but when they got there shit hit the fan and there were machine guns and tanks everywhere, even though the movie had already pointed out the sorry state of automobiles at the time. Apparently the weapons industry was light years ahead of everything else. And after Sherlock dies for a moment, they escape by train and head to the peace summit, which was quite obviously going to be the culmination of the movie.

Once there, Holmes quickly figures out that the assassin would have a surgically altered face, but once having deduced that fact, he wanders off to play chess with Moriarty. Watson, using Holmes’ methods, figures out the gunman and all seems saved. But what about the chess game?

Holmes wins the literal game, but suspects himself overmatched due to a nagging injury procured after being stabbed through the chest with a giant metal hook, so intends to simply sacrifice his own life to pull Moriarty off a balcony and kill them both. A complicated Game of Shadows between two intellectuals devolves into a game of snatch and grab. But right before Holmes does his noble deed and achieves martyrdom, Watson shows up on the balcony. But does Holmes reconsider his strategy with the clear advantage of two against one? No. He immediately ditches and pulls Moriarty over the balcony anyway.

I understand that the film wanted to make a grand gesture of how devoted Sherlock is to the effort of defeating evil in all forms: he would literally forfeit his own life for the greater good. But as he plummets down towards icy death, Moriarty screaming in terror just to his side, Sherlock’s eyes are closed and he seems in a state of repose. He doesn’t look worried. It’s a cue to the viewer not to worry either, which takes me back to the original point: these films touch on heavy subjects, but none of them are the subject of the movie. There’s war and death and murderous plot, but the hero is above all that. His personality and cunning dominate the nefarious threats that would consume a man in a more realistic movie. When Holmes later appears alive and well, with the hint that he somehow survived a five thousand foot fall with a tiny oxygenated apparatus, I don’t really care how he made it out alive. I was already back to being amused by Holmes, in his “urban camouflage”, bantering with his pal-turned-test-subject: Gladstone the dog. And that’s all that I really take away from these movies. Downey Jr. and Law are really good in these roles and it’s fun to watch them breathe jocularity into such timeless literary characters. I know this is really all that matters when I consider how arbitrary the other characters are.

The original Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Noomi Rapace, plays a gypsy fortune teller who is trying to rescue her brother. But she fails and he dies. Oops. Too bad for her. Rachel McAdams reprises her role as Irene Adler to die within a few minutes of…did I hear that right? Tuberculosis? Okay, whatever. Stephen Fry gets more into the spirit of playfulness as Mycroft, Sherlock’s older brother. But he remains aloof entirely, never directly connected with any of the significant plot developments. Watson’s fiancé becomes his wife, is thrown off a train into a river, and later houses with Mycroft. But, yet again, her relationship with Watson plays a distant second fiddle to the partnership of her husband and Holmes. Even Moriarty seems a little superficial, just an insanely intelligent and wealthy man who has no proper motive for being evil. More money? That’s it?

But you can throw all these characters away because the Doc and the Detective are what matter. They could rattle off a whole string of these movies based solely on the chemistry of the two leading men. Have them chase down Jack the Ripper or solve the First World War or avert the Titanic disaster – it doesn’t matter. I’ll be there to watch. The tandem is that good.