Guy Ritchie

With CBS’ Elementary, BBC’s Sherlock and Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes movies, it’s apparent we’re quite spoilt for interpretations of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s famous sleuth. Sherlock – Case of Evil arose a few years before any of the aforementioned were even a glimmer in Tumblr’s eye, and it could, if one was feeling fair, be said that it paved the way them. Well, it could if you chose to ignore the glorious films that came before it and, this is the important bit, believed that Case of Evil was actually any good.

Acting as a sort of Holmes Begins, we meet the young detective (James D’Arcy) dining out on the fame brought to him by killing the nefarious Professor Moriarty (Vincent D’Onofrio). Holmes is young and dashing. Not that he’s without sin. Namely, alcohol and threesomes with rosy cheeked wenches. Yes, indeedy, this is a sexy Holmes. A Holmes full of hope. He skips into the mortuary of Dr John Watson (Roger Morlidge) and the two become wrapped up in a mystery that suggests that Moriarty is still alive and basically being a cad and a shit.

As Case of Evil judders forward, it becomes apparent that the film is less concerned with Holmes tracking down Moriarity and more with providing a revisionist’s idea of how Holmes became the man we know him to be. A bit like Young Sherlock Holmes, but with more blood and breasts. What it really comes across as is a lightweight romp across the cobbles with numerous hideous Holmes references crowbarred in. It crams them in like battery hens. It’s as if there was a checklist of things they wanted to include. Drug addiction – this is how it happened. Mistrust of women – this is how it happened. By the time, Holmes is unceremoniously given his pipe and deerstalker, the game of interest is no longer afoot and well and truly over. There’s something rather insulting about believing that one whole adventure can provide all the intricacies one human can have.Trying to do its own things whilst adhering to the canon of Doyle is probably where it really lets itself down. In for a penny, in for a pound should have been their war cry. After all, it’s didn’t hurt the Asylum’s Sherlock Holmes which turned out to be lots of fun.

There’s also an embarrassing number of jokes in Case of Evil that we’re now referring to as Hindsight Jokes. You know the kind; someone in Mad Men will make a comment about one day being able to take your phone everywhere to which we are all supposed to stroke our chins and think, ‘Ha! He’s predicted mobile phones! Hahaha! I’ve forgotten about my parents’ divorce.’ Well, Case of Evil is chock full of them. Really bad ones. Ones that make you wish your head was made of glass so you could smash it. ‘Step into the 19^th century!’ sneers Moriarty when presented with a Sherlock Holmes ready to swordfight.

All in all, we’re not sure if the world is crying out for a gritty, sexy version of Sherlock Holmes. If it is, then this is not it.

Guy Ritchie’s original movie, Sherlock Holmes, was greeted by many a bemused person who felt that he had lynched the good name of Arthur Conan Doyle by giving us a bohemian Holmes who was an ace shot, a crack swordsman and a bare-knuckle fighter. These same people having based their opinion of Holmes solely on Basil Rathbone movies. However, it was successful and deliberately left itself open to a sequel. Here is that sequel, Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows.

Sherlock Holmes (Robert Downey Jnr) is spending an inordinate amount of time trying to track down evidence that can lead to the arrest and capture of Professor Moriarty, lecturer, author and criminal mastermind. Upon meeting a fortune teller named Simzi (Noomi Rapace), Holmes begins a case that could lead not only to Moriarty, but also to saving civilisation as we know it. Not bad for a man who has taken to drinking formaldehyde.

Seemingly learning from criticisms of the last installment, Game of Shadows dispenses with the overly-complicated plot and, taking it’s cues from The Final Problem, becomes a merry chase across Europe. Whilst I’m a big fan of the original, I was pleased to see the plot simplified as the original does fall down like a game of ker-plunk if you analyse it too closely. The sequel is not without it’s fault, an attempt to cover up a murder is is presented as ingenious, when in actual fact it seems like a colossal waste of manpower.

Downey Jnr and Jude Law, as Dr Watson, bounce off each other superbly, retaining the love/hate married couple relationship that made them a joy to watch before. Jared Hill is superb as Moriarty and, in comparison to Lord Blackwood from before, brings a believable villainy to role without having to chew the scenery. His dialogues with Holmes are excellent and you genuinely believe them to be two men who share awe and loathing of each other in equal measure. It’s a shame about Noomi Rapace then. Forever to be known as that woman from The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo/Played with Fire/Punched a Train, Rapace becomes nothing more than window dressing and, at best, the Holmes equivalent of a Doctor Who companion. ‘What’s this Holmes?’, ‘Why that Holmes?’, ‘Look it’s the Ice Warriors, Holmes!’ etc.

Some of Guy Ritchie’s direction does grate a little. There are so many Lock, Stock moments of quick cuts it can become a tad disorientating. His overusage of slooooooooooooowing thiiiiings dooooooown before speedingupreallyquickly does become a bit of a headache, but it’s nice to see a cheeky nod to the almost infallible Holmes-O-Vision we were introduced to in Sherlock Holmes.

After the swashbuckling finale of it’s predecessor, some fans maybe disappointed with the wordy way everything is resolved in Game of Shadows. The film quite literally waves an ending in your face, before changing gears suddenly. However, I found it to be more line in with the original stories than crossing swords on top of an incomplete Tower Bridge.

A Game of Shadows will most definitely split people down the middle. It is not a film to tax your braincells, but rather a ripping yarn. Which isn’t really all that different to Holmes canon in general if truth be told.