Review of Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows (2011) by Skantea — 15 Apr 2012
Reviewing this in real time;.
It begins 'elementary' enough, by minute 22 I've 'deduced' that this ride is going to be 99.9% visual, so I'm now removing my thinking cap and settling in for 2 hours of style over substance. It's very pretty. Every shot would make a decent screensaver. Very little of the dialogue seems to matter. OMG it's see-Say, they keep saying exactly what we're already seeing. You could watch this with the sound off. Minute 51 and I'm still not letting myself think about what I'm seeing, that would ruin it. It's still very pretty to look at, though. I think this is what you would call a "visual feast". BTW, the acting is fine, everyone is squeezing as much tonal modulation as possible from every line. Emote, baby, emote.
Just to underline the most glaring error so far, Sherlock Holmes is and always has been the 'Thinking Man's hero'. He's wasn't Indiana Jones, he's wasn't Bond, he's wasn't Batman. But now he's all three. Okay, now back to the film.
It got really really pretty for a while and now it's just back to regular pretty.We're at the point where the audience is supposed to think, "Uh oh, s#!+ just got real." Bombs, canons, Gatling guns, GERMANS! A ballet of explosions! Death...sadness, loss...resurrection? Aww, BFFF's. That was fun to watch. Okay, let's regroup and begin building the third act.
Surprisingly I now care (mildly) about the principle characters. Still no use for dialogue, you know everything because you can see it. Ha! Ritchie just tried to make a political statement about war profiteers. Cute. Hm, final conflict was also fun to watch. Final punchline aaand that's a wrap.
Okay to summarize, it's all about style, there's no mystery or very much story for you to get absorbed in, you just follow the action to the end. Guy Ritchie is not deep but he does have an eye for visual detail and when he gets to stop worrying about storyline and just lay out cool visuals he nails it. Early in to this real-time review I started thinking of this film as a high priced escort, pretty to look at but no fun to talk to. Well this one was pretty enough so you didn't need to talk to her for 2hours, 3 minutes and 27 seconds. And now that she's gone you can't hate on her. She is what she is.
6 out of 10 because I didn't feel frustrated when it was over. AND it was really pretty.
This review of Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows (2011) was written by Skantea on 15 Apr 2012.
Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows has generally received positive reviews.
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