SPOILERS
Best movie I’ve seen all year.
Ok that’s maybe not too impressive considering it’s mid-January and my exams and coursework have only let me go to the cinema once.
But, this is the first movie that I’ve paid to see twice since Avatar, way back in 2009, and I even did so because I enjoyed it, not because I couldn’t follow it…
Sherlock and Watson are back and bigger and better with the additions of Jarred Harris as Sherlock’s evil counterpart Professor Moriarty, Stephen Fry as his equally socially inept brother Mycroft Holmes and Noomi Rapace as Gypsy, Simza. Great performances all round, as distracting as I find it seeing Stephen Fry in a serious film. Harris has the creepy factor, RDJ and Jude Law’s charm and relationship are the driving force once more and Noooooomi Rapace does well in the space she’s given, not becoming a typical love interest. Oh I do have once exception. Rachael -I’m more fake than the tans in MClub on a Tuesday night- Adams. In the 5 minutes she was in the film, she managed to deliver her overly rehearsed lines so forced and unnaturally that she had to be killed off, with Sherlock, and the audience, forgetting she ever existed by the halfway mark.
The story’s much sharper than the first one, with Moriarty being a much more interesting match to Sherlock than Blackwood. We see Sherlock’s horror at Moriarty’s crimes matched with his admiration of their execution and complexion with this film becoming a battle of the mind. There are more of the ‘pre visualising ‘ sections of the first film, with Sherlock playing out events in his head, but they aren’t overused, something which I was scared of. The ‘boss fight’ between Holmes and Moriarty being a physical fight being played out in their minds is the perfect clash.
In fact, the film had one of the best endings I’ve ever seen, the chess battle narrating Moriarty’s plot and his downfall, Holmes’s kamikaze, Watson attending his funeral and writing his book, and of course THAT urban camouflage we all forgot about. The action sequences were also among the best I’ve ever seen. It doesn’t get much better than the forest scene in super slo mo with trees exploding left right and centre. Every environmentalist’s dream.
I did have the odd problem with it though. It wasn’t as ‘Sherlocky’ as the first one or the excellent BBC Drama ‘Sherlock’. More emphasis is on the action than the puzzles, drifting it towards just being a generic, clever, Hollywood action film than a detective film.
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| Cumberbatch= more intelligent |
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| RDJ= more American |
Also Sherlock died too much! As in any Hollywood film one of the main characters obviously has to be die or be on the verge of death before magically making a full recovery at some stage, whether it’s Optimus Prime, Captain America, Captain Jack Sparrow, Harry Potter, Watson in the first Sherlock, etc., etc., and in this film we get TWO Holmes deaths, one of which is fairly pointless.
While maybe slightly more Hollywood than intelligent, this was still one of the most entertaining films I’ve seen in a long time. Great cast, great plot and great visuals, a worthy and probably superior sequel. Sherlock could use a haircut though and I could use a bottle of Rum to get the image of a naked Stephen Fry out of my head.
Highlight- Check mate
Lowlight- That it had the perfect ending and Sherlock Holmes 3 has just been announced.
Overall 4* (out of 5)
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