I don't actually like the sound of this much.
Empire's review of Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows.
"Breezing into their next case, Guy Ritchie, Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law unapologetically stick to the formula. This robust sequel doesn’t gaze intently at its navel, or require you to have boned up on a bewildering mythos or, God forbid, go darker. There is very little sense of personal growth at all in Holmes’ case. Events will sprawl from London to Paris, Germany and a well-known waterfall in the Swiss Alps, with the same gung-ho spirit of a steampunk Bond, while doffing its cap to Hitchcock and the Wachowski siblings. The set-pieces are a mix of marvels and overkill: with dick-swinging braggadocio the film keeps introducing bigger and bigger guns. What has changed is the villain."
I'm sorry, how can you have Moriarty and the well-known waterfall and not go darker? This is the one where Holmes freaking sends Watson away and willingly walks to his death.
And "yay, no personal growth"? To be fair I suppose such personal growth as there is for Holmes in canon is ... probably kind of accidental, but the first film, while remaining of course pretty light and action-focused, seemed to set up all these interesting possibilities and directions in which he might go, but it turns out he's not going anywhere? Except, presumably, to Reichenbach but somehow this is not at all dark?
The Wachowski siblings? Oh God.
Look. Fine. Whatever you want, Ritchie. Just make Watson cry. I've seen Burke do it, (manly hand clapped over face) Solomin do it (shameless full-body sobbing, hurrah!). I want to see Law do it. That's really all I ask of this entire film.
Uh, incidentally, when I get back to writing Antidote to Sorrow I just want it to be known that I thought of "European Anarchist bombings" as a plot ingredient first.
"Breezing into their next case, Guy Ritchie, Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law unapologetically stick to the formula. This robust sequel doesn’t gaze intently at its navel, or require you to have boned up on a bewildering mythos or, God forbid, go darker. There is very little sense of personal growth at all in Holmes’ case. Events will sprawl from London to Paris, Germany and a well-known waterfall in the Swiss Alps, with the same gung-ho spirit of a steampunk Bond, while doffing its cap to Hitchcock and the Wachowski siblings. The set-pieces are a mix of marvels and overkill: with dick-swinging braggadocio the film keeps introducing bigger and bigger guns. What has changed is the villain."
I'm sorry, how can you have Moriarty and the well-known waterfall and not go darker? This is the one where Holmes freaking sends Watson away and willingly walks to his death.
And "yay, no personal growth"? To be fair I suppose such personal growth as there is for Holmes in canon is ... probably kind of accidental, but the first film, while remaining of course pretty light and action-focused, seemed to set up all these interesting possibilities and directions in which he might go, but it turns out he's not going anywhere? Except, presumably, to Reichenbach but somehow this is not at all dark?
The Wachowski siblings? Oh God.
Look. Fine. Whatever you want, Ritchie. Just make Watson cry. I've seen Burke do it, (manly hand clapped over face) Solomin do it (shameless full-body sobbing, hurrah!). I want to see Law do it. That's really all I ask of this entire film.
Uh, incidentally, when I get back to writing Antidote to Sorrow I just want it to be known that I thought of "European Anarchist bombings" as a plot ingredient first.