So I’m sick this weekend, which is good timing since school starts on Monday so if I’m going to be sick, it might as well be now. I’m hoping to be 90% better and climbing by Sunday night. But that means I get to do lazy-fun things like watch movies.
I bought Sherlock Holmes Game of Shadows for Christmas and hadn’t gotten around to watching it until last night. I enjoyed Robert Downy Jr. and Jude Law in the first Sherlock Holmes movie they put out, so I was confident I would like this movie as well. And I did. Those movies have a distinctly steampunk flavor to them, though that might just be the era they are written in.
However, I have to admit that the BBC’s Sherlock — which I watched several months ago on Netflix — has forever altered the way I look at Sherlock Holmes. They are, in a word, brilliant.
So when I sat down to watch Downy Jr. and Jude Law go gallivanting through London I had to make a conscious effort to ignore the Sherlock and Watson duo that Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman had portrayed.
Granted, the BBC version is really an updated Holmes, putting him into our century with Blogs and things, so it is distinctly different from the period setting that we find in the movies. But I promise you, if you watch the BBC version of Sherlock you will have the same problem as me.
So!
The verdict is that Game of Shadows was really quite good — even if it did rely on the shadow camera a bit more than the first movie — and the Downy Jr. – Jude Law duo is funny in an action-packed sort of way. However, if you’ve read the books then you know how much dramatic license was taken with stuff there. It’s a fun romp through Europe, but slightly less Holmes-ish due to all the action.
Watch it and enjoy it, and -then- you should go watch the BBC’s Sherlock. That way you’re not spoiled by the Freeman-Cumberbatch performances like I was. (Because seriously … they’re brilliant.)
AJMaguire 
Have you seen Elementary? I actually like it far better than BBC’s Sherlock. First of all, I love the casting of Lucy Lu as Joan Watson. That was gutsy and it works really well. Johnny Lee Miller plays a much more fully three-dimensional Holmes, rather than just a genius who leaves mere mortals behind in his deductions.
I also have a problem with Moffat’s writing–especially vis a vis his treatment of women. I REALLY dislike what he did to Irene Adler’s personality and personal agency in the BBC series.
I actually haven’t seen Elementary. I have to agree with you on Irene Adler’s personality because … Yeah. That was kinda gross. But otherwise I loved the Sherlock-Watson combination there.
I was a smidgen worried about Lucy Lu’s casting, but that’s because I saw her in a movie once that left a bad taste in my mouth. That was a long time ago, though, so I suppose I should move on.