Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows

[TheAuldGrump]

As an aside, I just realized that the site I got the above image from is a Holmes/Watson slash site.... Damn you Google! What have you done!



The world is a strange, strange place....

The Auld Grump

 

[RangerWickett]

That's not encouraging.

Even less encouraging.

How would you compare it to the first movie? Better? Worse? Same?

I agree with Quickleaf. Good beginning, weak ending, underutilized elements that didn't tie together as well as they could.

But since I'm writing a nominally steampunk Victorian-esque series of adventures (ZEITGEIST), there were some great visuals and inspiring concepts.

 

[Janx]

this

but the chemistry of the leads stayed good.

and

Aside from the terrible chemistry between the chief protagonists

I don't think chemistry defines what we think it means if 2 people disagree on whether the lead characters have it or not.


I thought the ending was a bit abrupt, but clever. spoiler alert...

OOC: While I'm wasting space to give ample spoiler avoidage, why the smurf doesn't the post editor have a proper spoiler tag to make the content collapsible like I know some people know how to use. or color changing. In stead it has buttons for html, code, and php, topics of which we aren't likely to need on an RPG forum.

Spoiler

having the entire fight at the end occur in their mind makes sense for 2 very cerebral people. Holmes correctly concludes he cannot win, and thus chooses not to fight.

Using chekov's gun, we were shown the breathing apparatus which would lend to his survival (though that was a long drop into very cold water).

The gun fired again, with the use of the urban camoflauge trick that we saw in the very beginning of the movie.

I won't call it satisfying, as I would have probably liked some more fighting, chasing etc. But the point of a climactic encounter of 2 brainiacs is that everything IS cerebral and not physical. I can see how it makes sense.

 

[ssampier]

I really enjoyed the movie. I actually liked it a bit better than the first one. Watson and Holmes were great was usual. Stephen Fry was great. Although I really, really did not need to see him in that state of affairs.

I saw the ending coming (at least most of it), but it was still awesome how it ended.

 

[TarionzCousin]

OOC: While I'm wasting space to give ample spoiler avoidage, why the smurf doesn't the post editor have a proper spoiler tag to make the content collapsible like I know some people know how to use. or color changing. In stead it has buttons for html, code, and php, topics of which we aren't likely to need on an RPG forum.

For the type of spoiler shown below, the term you need to put between the brackets is

[sblock]sblock[/sblock]

 

[Meatboy]

True. I was being tongue in cheek about the movie fight choreography being derived from Wing Chun rather than anything Japanese.

Bartitsu is, as I understand it, was an actual eclectic martial art derived from judo and jujitsu developed by a guy named Barton around the era Doyle was writing.

Yeah it was one of the first "mixed martial arts" of modern times. It was Kano ryu jujitsu (aka Judo), boxing, savate, cane de combat (stick fighting) and wrestling. I do recall having read somewhere, around the time the first new movie came out that Baritsu was indeed supposed to be Bartitsu.

 

[Quickleaf]

Yeah it was one of the first "mixed martial arts" of modern times. It was Kano ryu jujitsu (aka Judo), boxing, savate, cane de combat (stick fighting) and wrestling. I do recall having read somewhere, around the time the first new movie came out that Baritsu was indeed supposed to be Bartitsu.

I was under the same impression, either that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle misspelled it or the editor/publisher did. Perhaps intentionally.

I never thought of it as a MMA, I guess that does make it seem more badass!

 

[GreenLantern]

It's not as good as the first movie due to the weaker story and pacing of the new story. Also, I thought the villian should have had more screen time, given that he is suppose to be Sherlock's arch-enemy.

 

[Villano]

Rathbone was a great Holmes, but I will never understand why his films placed Holmes during WWII....

I remember seeing a documentary on Holmes which said that audiences actually preferred to have the movies set in (then) modern times...and it's not that weird when you think about it. Holmes was set in the late 19th century and the films were made in the early 20th. It's no different than taking a property from the 1960s and setting it in the present day.

Heck, fifty years from now, they might be making James Bond films set in the 60s and wondering why we set them in modern times.

 

[GreenLantern]

Just a side note: if you have Netflix, watch the BBC tele-movies called Sherlock. It is set in modern times, which I was initially concerned about, but it actually works out quite well. The first season has three episodes, which I found to be very enjoyable.