Movie Review: Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows (2011)

I imagine that most people have heard the following refrain: it's not as good as the original. It is true that the previous movie was stupendous. Consequently, any comparison with it that places the object being compared as inferior reveals very little, indeed. But I'm not so quick to say that this film is, in fact, not as good. For some reason it seems longer (which it is, by 1 minute), but is highly entertaining throughout. Many features from the first are present: the mental image forecast of fighting tactics by Sherlock (which might have been overdone this time, and something I find to not be realistic), the slow-motion scene of destruction (which was done incredibly well), and obviously the deductions of super-human intellect and attention. It is very similar to the first movie (though not as similar as Crank 2 is to Crank). But I believe that the stakes are higher this time around. Whereas in the first [POTENTIAL SPOILER ALERT!] Holmes was trying to prevent the offing of most of the British Parliament (big deal!) in this he takes the ulra-heroic task of taking on the military-industrial complex. I actually found this movie to be even more satisfying than the first as it presents a fitting nemesis (who is his arch from the books) in Professor Moriarti, who is a match in terms of intellectual prowess. However, I was disappointed that it did not demonstrate the same for Sherlock's brother, who, in terms of Doyle's novels, was superior to him in terms of his deductive capacity in solving crimes, but was too fat and lazy to see if his suspicions were true. But nonetheless, I think that Sir Arthur would be pleased with these particular film adaptions of his characters (he was quite an eccentric character himself, leaving his wife a technique to communicate with him after he passed from this world). A Game of Shadows seems worthy of knighthood, at least in my book.