A Game of Shadows

Warner Brothers

PG 13 129 min

OK I admit I’m a bit of a traditionalist.

Some hard rules:

Lex Luthor cannot wear a wig.

Batman can’t fly.

Neither Mr. Phelps nor Pat Chambers would sell out their friends.

Sherlock Holmes is most certainly an eccentric genius but he is not Jackie Chan Steven Seagal or Chuck Norris.

The last one is my biggest gripe concerning both of the Holmes films starring Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law. Look I understand that there are a lot of young moviegoers who may not be fans or even aware of the Arthur Conan Doyle books. Those that are should be aware that once more great liberties have been taken with the tradition. Personally I don’t mind a little riffing on the character as in THE SEVEN PERCENT SOLUTION and I don’t particularly mind the current portrayal of Holmes and Watson as kind of a 19th century Oscar and Felix but this story, while incorporating some of the lynchpins of the original is far too action thriller oriented for my taste. While the boys from Baker Street were certainly no weaklings the scuffling is rare. Here there’s a noisy brawl or gunfight every few minutes. Worse yet there are only a few half assed attempts to show the observatory powers of the famed sleuth.

Fans of the books may have wondered if Holmes’ obsession with his nemesis Dr. Moriarty might have been paranoia but not here.

He’s embroiled in some sinister plot to stir up a world war and reap the profits of the military industrial complex. No guesswork involved.

It’s not a very interesting case and recap of vague clues at the end is underwhelming. Even the potential cliffhanger (actually found in the Doyle writing) is wasted. It’s noisy and frenetic and probably won’t appeal to the aficionado but it might be fun for the rest.

C

WSS

Email westsidesteve@aol.com