SUCK MY DISC

Sherlock Holmes: A game of Shadows

 *** out of ****

            This weeks DVD releases comes with Sherlock Holmes: A game of Shadows (2011). This is the sequel to Sherlock Holmes (2009) staring Robert Downey Jr., Jude Law, Rachel McAdams, and Mark Strong. This time around Robert Downey Jr., as Sherlock Holmes, and Jude Law, as Dr. Watson, fight against Sherlock’s archenemy Professor Moriarty played by Jared Harris.

 

If you have not seen this movie by now this is your chance. Robert Downey Jr. plays his signature role of extremely confident border lining arrogance (It would be arrogance if he couldn’t back it all up), and dangerously clever. As always he delivers a very unique character that you can’t help but want to follow to the end of the earth and maybe lend some illogical amount of money to knowing it probably won’t be returned. He is that guy. But not only is his character compelling he has Jude Law to back him up.

(Click on it) Just like peanut butter and jelly…with chocolate…and acid.

 

Jude Law provides a great companion for Sherlock. He is just as smart and independent as Mr. Holmes, which gives him the wit not to fall for his many tricks. When Law does succumb to a trick, he does it on purpose because he loves the adventure it brings. He is the guy that lends all that illogical money to Sherlock in hopes there are some crazy stories at the end.

 

In Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows there are a multitude of intelligent characters that provide witty dialogue. The best examples are dialogue between Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson.

 

“Sherlock Holmes: [looks at Watson’s gun] Get that out of my face.”

“Dr. John Watson: It’s not in your face; it’s in my hand.”

“Sherlock Holmes: Get what’s in your hand out of my face!”

 

“But wait Alex that is all just like the first movie, what’s new?” Oh I am so glad you asked. Yes, surprising the movies are very similar but don’t make the mistake that it is boring. It is equally as entertaining and well produced as the first movie. Whether or not you like the first or second movie better is up to you. Overall, movie number two is equally as well made.

 

The drama is cranked up a notch this time. If I said any more then I would be spoiling some really good plot points. But take my word for it, the plot twists and turns make this movie anything but predictable. The characters are pushed to their limits and are forced to make some death defying decisions. Now this sounds like every movie made in the 1990’s but the fast paced tone and the steampunk gypsy filled world makes it a unique experience.

If this needs a caption for you, just leave the site now.

Then there is the comic relief. No I am not talking about Robert Downy Jr, but Stephen Fry who plays Sherlock’s Brother, Mycroft Holmes. He is an influential man but somewhat exotic. In one scene he shows everyone what he is really made of. He provides somewhat random comedy that oddly enough fits in well with the flow of the movie.

 

(***WARNING SPOILER APPROACHING***)

(Skip this paragraph if you don’t want to know)

 

 

Now I have read all the other reviews and to my surprise most of them are very negative. One such grip that I found online was that some people thought Robert Downey Jr. seemed rushed in his acting. I actually felt that his character was tired. But that makes sense to me because (Here comes the spoiler) his love interest, Rachel McAdams, gets murdered by Moriarty. In the first movie, he had no emotional ties holding him down but now that he finally opened himself up he allowed himself to be damaged. This fatigued his character. All in all, the acting by Mr. Downey is just as good to any casual viewer. It would take a professional eye to notice that the acting is sub par (honestly I didn’t notice if it was).

(More spoilers skip this too)

And now that I have unleashed the spoiler in this paragraph I want to take a second to say how I think killing Sherlock’s love interest propelled the story. This created real drama for me, none of that twilight I-love-you-just-because-I-love-you-crap. This made the movie have some real stakes. Killing an important character is a bold choice that really shocks the audience.

 

 

(All clear, Read on)

 

Overall, I liked Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows. I thought it was a fun, visually stunning, and emotionally charged. Those are all the signs of a good time. The end was also quite the cliff jumper. I would recommend the movie for anyone who wants to lose themselves in a fast paced, quirky adventure for a few hours. I give it 3 out of 4.

Published by Alex Salerno.(Contact me on twitter @Alex_Salerno)

 Ghost Rider 2: Spirit of Vengeance

1/2 (out of ****)

Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance is a jolly romp through the seedy underbelly of Hell and back. In the midst of superhero season, a movie comes along that disgraces the very idea of not only movie making but the superhero genre as well. Ghost Rider features Nick Cage as Johnny Blaze who makes a deal with the devil to save his father’s life, but as every deal with the devil does it came with a price, he became the Spirit of Vengeance and takes the souls of wrongdoers and bad people everywhere. Sounds Awesome right. Wrong. Certain things are hard to put down in words, to rate this movie is going to be fucking impossible, yeah it’s that bad, but here we go anyway.

So let’s start with Nick Cage, sometimes I feel that he needs to be put in a box and shown the movies he done over and over again so he feels that pain that the audience feels every time he does a movie. Between his lackluster performances, and his monotonous boring tones he makes you want to get up and find his house and strangle him, I literally had to sit through this movie three times to be able to watch it in its entirety. Seriously the only good movie that Nick Cage has ever done was Leaving Las Vegas,  or maybe Face Off and the reason that those two movies are any decent is because Nick Cage is trying to kill himself or he’s trying to play John Travolta respectively. I just wonder sometimes how people like him can get so big, really does anyone actually say “yeah lets go see that movie Nick Cage is in it, it should be good.” Normally when I see his name on a movie most people have to drag me in kicking and screaming, sometimes drugged and gagged, just so I’ll sit through the movie without wanting to throw my popcorn at the screen and yell obscenities the whole time.

Gentlemen I am now ready to see Ghost Rider 3

Also Johnny Blaze/Vengeance is a great character, he embodies the secret demons we all have within us and the power we want to control. In the comics they work as a team, and while they normally don’t speak to each other directly they will leave clues for each other through dream and notes etc. In the movie Johnny was afraid of the Spirit of Vengeance, and acted like a recovering addict whenever someone even talked about it. Ghost Rider is too much like all the bad parts of the Hulk, even though both Johnny and Dr. Banner are rejecting the Hulk/Ghost Rider and trying to get over it, at the same time they have no control over the monsters they hold inside them either.

I’m just so ashamed of making this movie – Nick Cage

 

The one redeemable feature of this movie was the special effects, Nick Cage transforming mid-bike ride, or him pissing fire, they did make the movie entertaining to some degree. Unfortunately this might have been the only thing that kept the movie together because everything else was horribly crap.

The only worthwhile moment in the movie

(By the Way: Spoilers Ahead)

I could try to explain the plot but to be honest, I didn’t understand or even care about the plot anyway, but if I had to make an honest attempt at it here it goes. Short Version Ghost Rider becomes good. Long Version, Ghost Rider needs to save a little boy who is the going to be the new body for the Devil, who lives in our realm but has to jump from body to body and is weak because human forms can’t control the power the Devil has. If he were to inhabit the body of the little boy he would be able to live forever, but thank goodness Nick Cage is there to stop them, all the while trying to reject the Ghost Rider. Eventually he gets the spirit out of his body, but then soon after needs the power to save the world. He gets the Spirit of Vengeance back (don’t ask how I still don’t understand that part) and defeats the Devil and becomes a good version of Ghost Rider, because Vengeance was once an Angel that went insane with all the horrors it saw in the world. Does it make sense to you, because it doesn’t to me.

Lastly I want to remind everyone that I love superhero movies and I will go out of my way to give them the benefit of the doubt, unfortunately I could not fall in love with this movie. It felt like at every turn the director said “well we could make this movie good, but instead I’m just going to make the easy buck instead.” Truly what the movie was missing was love, not just from any one person either, but from the whole cast and crew, and when you have a group that isn’t invested with a movie and doesn’t care about the outcome, you get movies like Ghost Rider 2: Spirit of Vengeance.