RAPACE, DOWNEY AND LAW. Elaborate hijinks in fast-paced actioner.
THERE’S method to Robert Downey Jr.’s crowd-pleasing “madness” in Guy Ritchie’s “A Game of Shadows” (which opens tomorrow), the zippy sequel of 2009’s revisionist “Sherlock Holmes.” The versatile actor pulls off the difficult task of juggling exhilarating action and zany comedy as the film hurtles from one noisy scene to another.
In the franchise’s latest installment, Holmes (Downey) goes mano-a-mano against his brainy nemesis, Professor James Moriarty (Jared Harris), who stands to profit from a world on the brink of global anarchy.
Irreverent ‘devotion’
This time, the British sleuth demonstrates his irreverent “devotion” to his trusted sidekick, the newly married Dr. John Watson (Jude Law), whose life is at risk after Moriarty threatens to get rid of Holmes’ bosom buddy and his bride, Mary (Kelly Reilly). Such is Holmes’ “affection” for the good doctor that he’s even willing to (gasp!) throw Mary out of a speeding train—in the guise of saving her life, of course!
With the help of Dr. Watson and a gypsy fortune-teller, the feisty Madame Simza Heron (Noomi Rapace), Holmes must unravel clues from a series of bombings and assassinations to foil Moriarty’s plan for world domination, which has the trio globe-trotting from London to Paris to Switzerland, where Holmes settles his longstanding feud with Moriarty for good—at the 290 ft.-high Reichenbach Falls!
With elaborate hijinks ensuing (no spoilers here), the actioner plays out like a confounding series of unwieldy plot twists and a season’s worth of unlikely surprises: Reconstruction surgery, scheming romantic interests, cross-dressing partners, greedy antagonists—name it! Fortunately, the eye- and ear-popping tweaks are efficiently held together by the “winking” interplay between Downey and Law.
Like its predecessor, “Game of Shadows” sees its kooky protagonist flexing his muscles more than his brain in adrenaline-pumping, Hollywood blockbuster-style sequences that feel too otherworldly for the more ruminative style of Arthur Conan Doyle’s fictional “action” hero.
And, it certainly doesn’t hurt that the movie has Downey (who’s flakily impervious to the production’s absurdities) at the heart of its unlikely tale, flippantly dispensing harebrained jokes and dishing suggestive innuendos as he “flirts” with Law, Rapace, Rachel McAdams (in a “cameo” as Irene Adler)—and the audience!