Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows is a movie that entertains, but its plot is close to slipping into absurdity.
Professor James Moriarty (Jared Harris), the most brilliant criminal in Europe, murders and buys his way into control of key business industries, so he can start a world war. His endgame is to sell guns and cotton — yes, cotton — to both sides.
The movie is directed by Guy Ritchie, who pits the half-mad mind of Holmes (Robert Downey Jr.) against the half-sane mind of Moriarty in a cat-and-mouse game that unfolds in Europe during the Victorian era.
Rahsaan Thomas defended the story’s plausibility. To a prisoner who grew up hearing stories about how the CIA flooded inner cities with drugs while the government made a business out of fighting drugs, the story is not far-fetched. “After watching Bush use the wars after 9/11 to feed Halliburton’s pockets,” Thomas said, “this movie screams plausible.”
It is difficult to argue with Thomas’ experience. The plot, however, feels shallow, not because of what occurs, but because of why events occur and the character that makes them happen. Moriarty is wealthy, but if he succeeds in his schemes without being executed for treason, he will have … he will be … wealthy. We expect evil genius to make better risk-reward assessments. We would have liked the movie more if iconic genius had spawned a plan with aims more original than money.
Fortunately, talented actors salvage the plot. Downey and Jude Law continue with the chemistry that helped the success of the first Sherlock Holmes. Downey plays the stimulant-abusing, self-centered gentleman with charm, and Law convincingly affects long-suffering love for a friend who is both ridiculous and deeply flawed.
Jared Harris inhabits Moriarty and transforms any scene that lingers on him. He radiates malevolent power through an aloof demeanor, and his smile imparts the feeling that one is sinking in quicksand.
When SQ Reviews met to discuss A Game of Shadows, one of the points of contention was the film’s historical inaccuracies. Tommy Winfrey was the biggest proponent of the film’s right to set aside historical accuracy. “It’s not a historical movie,” Winfrey said. “It’s supposed to be attention-grabbing, and the scenes do that.”
Winfrey found little support for his position. Most of us belong to the prison demographic that reads a lot, and we can get indignant when we feel like our screenwriters are not taking the time to read at least an encyclopedia before writing a story of Victorian England. To Winfrey and the film’s credit, it turns out the rest of us need to read a book on the steampunk genre, which is the setting for Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows.
Steampunk is a subgenre of speculative fiction that posits an alternate reality where steam instead of fossil fuel became Western civilization’s preeminent power source. A hallmark of this genre is a more advanced level of technology than would otherwise be associated with a given era. Though Victorian alternate history settings are common, steampunk is not limited to this era.
Other movies from the steampunk genre include 2011’s Three Musketeers, staring Orlando Bloom, and Wild West, starring Will Smith.
We averaged out our ratings, and on a scale of one to five canteen items, the film rated two and a half bags of potato chips. Though opinions conflicted, we all agree that if you like to watch trees explode in slow motion, you will like A Game of Shadows.
Contributors: Emile DeWeaver, Aaron Taylor, Erin O’ Connor, Juan Meza, Miguel Quezada, Rahsaan Thomas and Tommy Winfrey