Sherlock Holmes: A Game Of Shadows (2011) - Highly entertaining but less innovating than the first feature - 7/10 (08/01/12)

Sherlock Holmes: A Game Of Shadows is an enjoyable follow-up of the first movie with the same line-up and includes everything fans and critics likes about the first feature: the camera work, the images and the exotic locations are breathtaking, the visual special effects and action scenes are also mind-blowing, the soundtrack is once again very intense, the movie contains a lot of humour and slapstick scenes and the flick finally features a solid acting that is rated up by some new actors like the Swedish shooting star Noomie Rapace. You will get very well entertained for almost two hours in this ride of action, humour and tension.

The reason why this movie though can't keep up with the first part is that its story is less intriguing, less surprising and simply less twisted. Many elements of this movie are quite predictable and stereotypical for this kind of genre while the first part had several well thought twists. Some scenes of the movie are simply too exaggerated like the escape scenes in Germany and the final showdown in Switzerland. This is effect loaded Hollywood popcorn cinema as we see it every day and the talent of many great actors and some great pieces of literature are somewhat wasted in here.

Another important problem is that the actions and goals of the main villain remain somewhat superficial. In general, the different new characters should have been more developed. The actors do their very best to give the somewhat ordinary characters a unique soul but sometimes they struggle a little bit and their talent gets a little bit wasted in this movie.

The script should have been more detailed and precise and the movie could have needed a healthy dose of around ten minutes of additional running time to portray us the uprising and the first evil actions of the main villain and his first acts of terrorism in the beginning. On the other side, the ending on the castle in Switzerland could have been more detailed and one could have shown us what happened to the different characters after the final showdown.

Even though these important flaws, the movie is saved by all the positive elements mentioned in the beginning of my review and the ending creates some high hopes for a possible third part. I hope that a possible third feature might unite the amazing script of the first part with the solid acting of the second part with more impressive sound and image effects to create a nearly perfect flick honouring one of the most fascinating characters in the history of literature where the traditional meets the modern.