#Sherlock holmes game of shadowscript movie
#Sherlock holmes game of shadowscript series

Call it Cinematic Square Peg, Round Hole syndrome, if you will.

Holmes, on the other hand, is simply at odds with that mode of high-flying adventure because it’s fixated on the minutiae of each moment, exhaustively explaining every new development and detail.

#Sherlock holmes game of shadowscript series

Problem is, those series depend on fast-paced, broad-stroke storytelling to succeed.

The film really wants to play like a Victorian-era Indiana Jones/James Bond adventure, with its characters skipping across locations willy nilly, carried almost solely by a string of dynamic action sequences. It depends solely on introducing never-foreshadowed elements that the audience has no chance of predicting. Sure, there’s a last minute reveal, but it’s a shameless cheat. Whereas the 2009 film sort of half-heartedly toyed with that trope, A Game of Shadows’ terrible script, by Michele and Kieran Mulroney, basically abandons the concept all-together! There isn’t a great deal of mystery here at all - only an endless series of convoluted happenings obscuring what is essentially a very, very routine villain scheme. In theory, the script for a Sherlock Holmes adventure should operate like clockwork, with all of the seemingly disconnected plot threads fusing together into one grand, climactic “A-ha!” moment of glorious revelation. The delightful deciphering duo are then launched on an extensive cross-country fact-finding mission, where they face unbelievably dangerous cliffhanger predicaments, and, ultimately, find themselves drawn ever closer into Moriarty’s sinister web of deceit and murder. However, an action-packed visit to a gypsy fortune teller (Noomi Rapace) soon brings an abrupt, explosive halt to Watson’s romantic plans. Unfortunately for the crazed detective, his trusty right-hand man, Watson, is about to embark on his honeymoon with the lovely Mary (Kelly Reilly), and firmly resists helping to unravel the truth from the uber-tangled ball of conspiracy theories and misdirection.

#Sherlock holmes game of shadowscript movie

Picking up a few years after the initial entry, the movie opens with Sherlock (now with even more enhanced psychic powers!) on the trail of fiendish mastermind Professor James Moriarty (Jared Harris), a cold, sinister intellectual who may have a hand in a series of anarchic bombings that threaten to kick-start war in Europe. It’s a prime example of lazy franchise filmmaking taking what everyone loved the first time around and cranking the dial mercilessly up to 11. Alas, Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows is an obnoxious, confusing slog of a motion picture one that mistakes bombastic franticness for charm, revels in tiresome snarky smugness, and criminally wastes one of literature’s most indelible bad guys. My hopes were high that, with its gorgeously ugly steampunk Victorian London universe up-and-running, and the key figures firmly ingrained in the public consciousness, Ritchie would use his sequel to actually spin a ripping yarn worth telling. It also failed to supply a memorably dastardly villain or a lively love interest. and Jude Law, as Holmes and Watson, infectiously batted their roles out of the park, the picture separated them – to great detriment - for too much screen-time. Director Guy Ritchie was saddled with a script heavy on exposition and world-building, but light on actual mystery and depth. 2009’s surprise smash Sherlock Holmes, which reinvented Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s master detective into a hyper-aware bundle of anti-social neuroses and peculiarities, was a decent enough film hobbled by a number of problems.