# 3 - Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows

Year of Release: 2012
Director: Guy Ritchie
Starring: Robert Downey Jr, Jude Law, Noomi Rapace, Jared Harris, Stephen Fry

When the first of the Guy Ritchie Sherlock Holmes movies came out in 2009, I was not really sure what to think. Yes, I am a Holmes purist and I love and have read all of the stories. I know that Holmes was in fact adept at many forms of martial arts, but he was more of an armchair thinker like Hercule Poirot rather than Jean-Claude Van Damme.

I suspended my disbelief for the first movie and it turned out that the only item I had trouble swallowing was that Holmes had romantic feelings for a woman, even if it was Rachel McAdams as Irene Adler. Anyone who has read the stories can tell you, Holmes has never show any inclination towards a romantic relationship. This is not to say that he is attracted to men, it's more that he is a Sheldon Cooper when it comes to women and relationships. He does not see the point.

I was also a little disappointed that they just made up their own story for the first movie, but I understand that they needed to do that to keep from making all of the movies total copies of the stories.

And now onto A Game of Shadows.

I saw this on Tuesday and was super excited for a few reasons:

1) Stephen Fry [!!!] as Mycroft Holmes. How perfect was he? It does not help that I love Stephen Fry anyway, but he had Mycroft as that perfect balance between ego-centric and self-aware.

2) Moriarty. Jared Harris was wonderful as Holmes's arch-nemesis. Their bit about playing chess without actually moving the pieces was the best hint into the workings of their marvelous minds.

3) Colonel Sebastian Moran. Seeing him in this movie means that we will be seeing him again, which I am excited about.

Robert Downey Jr and Jude Law were brilliant in their characters, and Rachel McAdams [in her short amount of screen time], Noomi Rapace, and Kelly Reilly were excellent. I am especially glad that Kelly Reilly was given more to do in this movie. After seeing her as Miss Caroline Bingley in Pride and Prejudice, I was hoping that she would get some more of an actual character to sink her teeth into.

To Sum Up: See it if you like: Adventure, Action, Gypsies, Mystery, Torture, Romance [a little bit], Urban Camouflage, and of course, a non-Hangover Bachelor Party.