First Reviews For SHERLOCK HOLMES: A GAME OF SHADOWS Hit

Set to be released next Friday, here are the first batch of reviews for Guy Ritchie helmed sequel, Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows. Below are a selection of those which have come from some of the biggest outlets so far. As you can see for yourselves, while one or two aren't that positive, it would appear that the general reaction is that this is both an improvement on 2009's Sherlock Holmes and a generally fun movie. Of course, as more reviews start to hit over the next week, we'll get a better idea of how A Game of Shadows matches up to the rest of the 2011 blockbusters and can decide for ourselves when it hits the big screen on the 16th.

Breezing into their next case, Guy Ritchie, Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law unapologetically stick to the formula. This robust sequel doesn’t gaze intently at its navel, or require you to have boned up on a bewildering mythos or, God forbid, go darker. There is very little sense of personal growth at all in Holmes’ case. A sequel confident in what it's about - bigger, better, funnier, without stretching the joke. [4*]

Good news for those Holmes purists appalled by the prospect of literature's most cerebral sleuth getting a geezer makeover, but bad news for the rest of us: Sherlock Holmes isn't even a magnificent mistake. It's just a film that makes you hanker after Ritchie's back catalogue. Snatch included. Sherlock Holmes baffles in all the wrong ways. Is it a cool satire on Victorian seriousness? A thriller? A comedy? At least in the past Ritchie knew what he was making, even it wasn't always much good. This muddle of genres reflects a collapse of confidence in his ability to deliver anything.

If you didn't care for the first "Sherlock Holmes," I doubt this one will suddenly win you over. They are very much of a piece, but I prefer this one because I think the villain works better, and I think they make some great choices towards the end of the film. I do think there's a stretch in the middle of the film where it gets bogged down and has trouble maintaining a narrative momentum. Even so, when it finally brings Moriarty back in, it becomes wicked fun, and worth your time. I have no idea if this is going to be an ongoing concern for Warner and Ritchie and Downey and everyone else, but if so, it appears that they can indeed recreate the chemistry that made the first film work, so it sounds like these will continue to be worth waiting for. [2*]

After quite a few tedious detours and distractions, when the film finally gets down to the business of a climax at a gathering of elite European diplomats in a precariously perched Swiss mountain castle, it becomes not half-bad. A clever assassination plot comes to a head while Holmes and Moriarty sit down to a game of chess as they articulate their differences, leading to a mighty struggle that does nothing if not set up a sequel. With Watson's marriage on the line, Downey and Law raise the level of their sparring a notch from last time; that their portrayals of these famous characters are so distant from the original conceptions has now been proven irrelevant, perhaps even a plus to modern audiences. [B]

Ultimately, 'Game Of Shadows' is more complex than the first film, but it’s also a little less focused, and while the two qualities seem at odds with one another, the end result feels like a solid ‘70s or ‘80s movie where the filmmakers just aren’t in as much of a hurry, rather than a contemporary action-thriller that lacks steam or energy. Of course, it remains to be seen whether audiences as a whole will agree with that assessment – they’ll either embrace the bromance or balk at its context – but as a whole, Ritchie’s film rewards fans of the first film without merely duplicating its choices. Overall, “Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows” doesn’t quite qualify as a great film, but it’s a solid, engaging sequel, and the right sort of antidote to the season’s stuffier competition. [B+]

Ritchie's visual innovation of slowing down the action to illustrate Holmes' powers of perception certainly adds a level of pizzazz to the proceedings, though his tendency to employ the technique in conjunction with other action sequences is more deadening than exciting. The film only really sizzles, in fact, in its quieter moments between Holmes and Moriarty, two brilliant foes with a grudging admiration for each other. For purists, of course, there's almost certainly too much gunplay and noise (including Hans Zimmer's bombastic score), but this is a Holmes designed to appeal as much to the "Transformers" generation as those steeped in his literary or even past cinematic exploits. By that measure, Warner Bros.' new Holmes adventures must pursue a larger bounty than previous incarnations of the character. And with this improved sequel, the game is indeed afoot.