The bizarre double pairing of Guy Ritchie and Robert Downey Jr. made the 2009 Sherlock Holmes reboot a delightful surprise. With Downey's wit and charm matching perfectly with Ritchie's kinetic action and hyper stylized direction, providing a very entertaining yet wildly divergent take on the classic Sherlock Holmes story. For the sequel everything is cranked up; the action is more bombastic, the plot even more convoluted, and the gay sexual tension more palpable. This time Holmes arch-nemesis Prof. Moriarty has come forth for a head-to-head battle of wits that if lost could plunge western civilization into war.
Let me start off with the good (because there isn't much of it), the actors all give great performances Downey continues to prove himself an indispensable actor who oozes charisma and can pull up even the most stagnant of movies, which is very much the case here. The other notable performance comes from Jared Harris who plays a seething with anger yet playfully violent Moriarty, its a fantastic performance which is made all the better when playing off of Downey's manic and barely mentally coherent Holmes. The action continues to the Guy Ritchie tradition of heavy slow-mo usage and overly choreographed fights, all the action is staged well and looks incredible, with several fist-fights between Holmes and an ever rotating cast of "Hello My Name Is ________" being the big highlights. The mentally deduced step-by-step take down routine Holmes plays in his head before engaging in a fight is a welcome return from the first film and is always fun to watch unfold.
Unfortunately now we get to the bad; the script is a mess, serving up plot points that are never explained clearly then brushed away leaving you wondering why any of the events just happened or why they are deemed important in any way. Characters are introduced then vanish then pop up again when convenient. There are massive plot holes that are so blatantly stepped over including one that was clearly added in to justify a later set-piece that had me seething with frustration. Every joke, and I mean
EVERY joke falls flat. While most are recycled jokes from the previous film that are recited verbatim others are so painfully low-brow they barely rate mentioning. The few smirks all come from Sherlock's increasingly ridiculous disguises that somehow seem to fool everyone in the movie but not a soul in the audience.
The movie has a great breezy pace that is entirely negated by a completely baffling sense of rudimentary fictional peaks and valleys. Most films follow a particular structure so that the audience can follow along with the rise and fall of the emotions and events that occur through the length of the film. Sherlock Holmes has a massive climax filled with literal cannons and gunfire 45 minutes before the end of the film which in turn leaves the end of the film uneventful and unfulfilling. The movie is just generally moves at an erratic pace from set-piece to set-piece all the while leaving the movie feeling hollow and the actions unfolding meaningless.
Sherlock Holmes is a colossal failure as a sequel. It manages to squander all excitement and mystery that its predecessor had in spades and instead opts for a run of the mill action film with light charm. The movie comes across as trying to hard to maintain the out of the blue appeal of the first film, jokes come across forced and the action comes across as artificially heightened and blown out. Its unfortunate this sequel turned out as bad as it did, I was really looking forward to what this reinvented Holmes had in store. Fortunately/ or unfortunately (leaving room for hindsight) there will undoubtedly be a third film in the series and I can only hope they bring it back from the abyss of utter disappointment.
(2 out of 5)
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