A game of Shadows.

Just back from the theater, watched the new SH movie. It was....Good? Ish? Don't get me wrong, I liked the flick, but this? Sherlock? This was fanservice. And explosions. And gay jokes. But it was enjoyable, definitely enjoyable. Not orthodox Holmesness, but enjoyable.

 The beginning was slow. Not as in highspeed camera slow, but slow. Nothing really happened. As the first act of movies nowadays often contains an action sequence, this didn't so much. I mean, there was some action... I think? but nothing really happened. A few further plot points were set, and a pointless character killed (SPOILER: Adler) but overall, uneventful.  Pretty much everything that was instated was stated through conversation, which isn't that bad choice, but it's main point was more to instate the bro relationship between Watson and Holmes.

 The Stag party was there just to reinforce the bromance of Watson and Holmes(as if it needed any reinforcing). Ok, there was a plotwise-important character introduced, and a ninja cossack, but it seemed a little vague. They just needed a scene to introduce a character(more a plotpoint) and to get Watson drunk. And a ninja cossack.  The wedding scene  really gave nothing to the plot but the fact that Watson got married, it was like a prologue to the train scene. In which, more gay jokes. which is not that bad actually. Propably because I spend too much time in mentally unhealthy company, but I'm a glutton for punishment. And seriously, british railways, I tip a hat to your timetables, the train is on-time, even if it blows in half on the way. And a woman thrown off the train, because nothing can't stand between Holmes and Watson. And drag-Holmes, really? Really. That was unneccessary. One thing why the sequel was worse than the first, where in the first little things like this were used to spice a scene, and in here whole scenes were built around the comedy.
Sidenote, lipstick was invented in 1915, which makes it an anachronism.
Another sidenote, Mrs. Watson is a badass.

 The boat scene, well, was just to give watson a reason to be a little "Aww" towards Sherlock as he(conveniently) fiddled with Adler's hanky, and he realized that she was dead. But, as the friend I went to the movies with noted, that tuberculosis death smells different and thus Adler might be alive afterall. I doubt it, though. Would be pretty clever, but then again I am too optimistic about people who write movies.

 The stuff in France, and the new gypsy-character's joining to the party, because it was getting awfully gay and british(no offense). Plotpoint makes clear of it's existence and Moriarty fools Holmes to show that he's smart and evil that way. Also, a point of interest, Holmes spotted a bullet hole in a window which remained intact after the CG scene where all the windows(at the rough same distance to the bomb) were splintered to bits, how does that work out? Physics? Sleeping again?

One infernal pony and border-jumping later begins the ifiltration to an evil Teutonic arms factory. Big arms(not the body parts) btw. Holmes gets flayered for a plot point, and Watson compensates with about 95mm too big gun( points for smartness though. When fighting a sniper, you don't play fair. Great comic relief, too). Sherlock dies(for a change) and Watson saves him with combination of movie-CPR and plot point(bromance level up!)

As Sherlock mutters something about Switzerland every even semi-competent Holmes fan knows that we're coming to a wrap. Holmes dances with the gypsy woman and Watson. Yes, Watson. Mind you, gayness was kinda no-no back in the 1890s, that scene was just stupid.

And then comes the "final fight", where Moriarty and Holmes play chess and Holmes is all like "My apperentice will foil your plan!" and Moriarty is all like "Mwahahaha, he may have survived from my pointless murder attempt, but he can't solve this!" For incredibly smart people that Holmes and Moriarty are, it's beyond me how they fail by putting the king and queen in wrong spots on a chessboard.

 Watson of course succeeds in foiling the evil plan, but the evil henchman(conveniently the gypsy woman's brother) dies. This was supposed to be a sad thing, but really the viewer was given no reason to pity this nameless side character. Holmes also beats Moriarty in chess, and reveals the plotpoint worth being flayered and they share a (I'm not even kidding) telepathic Sherlockvision moment where they plan a fight choreography which Sherlock waters by boringly hopping off the cliff in front of Watson's eyes.

 The movie wraps up with watson writing about Holmes' plunge to death with the Napoleon of crime and receives a package that contains the plotpoint(A breathing device) that saved Holmes' life. HOW does a Breathing device small as your fist save you from a two-kilometer fall to water? At the point they'd hit water downstream would be Holmes-Moriarty(Not a slash pairing pelase, no...) pudding with that velocity. Watson rockets off to catch the mailboy who presumably was Holmes alive afterall but it isn't because Holmes had disguised himself as a sofa. Yes, a sofa. To hit a question mark behind THE END in Watson's (presumably) book.

Now it would seem that I hated the movie, although I claimed otherwise. No, I liked it, not as much as I liked the first one, but I liked it. I can easily see myself buying a DVD of it when one comes out, but not with full price.(more for the propable and hoped extras). Now, as what they ended the movie with, there propably will be a third one, I'll propably watch it, it wasn't that bad.

 Also there was the one "Oh my god what the fuck am I seeing this is funny" scene, which was when Watson's wife was fished off the river where she freshly dropped and taken to safety by Mycroft, whoo, ultimately at his house, strips stark naked(thank gods off-camera) and kinda just appears out of nowhere in Mrs. Watson's face. That would have been jsut a boring exposition scene, but the naked Stephen Fry, even how stupid it will sound, made funny. There were more of these scenes that were just genius in my opinion, but I can't remember all of them.

Bottomline: Too comedic approach. The first movie had an almost perfect balance of seriousness, comedy and gay jokes, which worked perfectly i the amounts they were administered, but all of these were jsut amped up in the second one, which made them less funny. Altogether, still an enjoyable package, but nothing too spectacular. All in all I had a nice movie experience in good company and I do not feel like I've wasted an evening(Like I did with I am Number Four...still shivers me). Go watch it, if you liked the first movie, but don't expect miracles.(expect gay jokes instead)