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Sherlock Holmes was a huge global hit back in 2009, re-inventing Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's super-sleuth as a sexy, wise-cracking action hero and making Warner Bros a ton of money in the process. So it's no surprise that the studio has gone back to the well for a sequel, with Guy Ritchie remaining on directing duties, and arch-nemesis Professor Moriarty taking centre stage as the film's villain.

Yet while the scope is larger and the threat greater this time around, the film fails to fully live up to the promise of the original, with Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows feeling like a case of one step forward, two steps back for the franchise.

Robert Downey Jr, Jude Law and Kelly Reilly in celebratory mode.

It starts promisingly enough, with a series of bomb blasts bringing chaos to European politics; France and Germany at each other's throats and the United Kingdom stuck somewhere in the middle.

With the nation facing trouble abroad, Sherlock Holmes is having issues of his own at home, struggling to come to terms with Watson's imminent nuptials, his diet of coffee, tobacco and embalming fluid making his moods increasingly manic, verging on the psychotic.

But more serious is his obsession with another man - namely Professor James Moriarty; his investigation into the bomb blasts reveal a complex scheme that points to the most formidable criminal mind in all of Europe, and one who just happens to be his intellectual equal.


The pair come face-to-face early on in proceedings, during a spellbinding scene in which they mentally spar with each other while at the same time triggering a chain of events that set them on a far more serious collision course.

With the game afoot, Holmes and Watson set out on a European odyssey, the conspiracy taking them to France, Germany and then finally to Switzerland, where the boys are charged with the task of not just bringing down the Professor, but of preventing the collapse of western civilization as we know it. So no pressure there then.

Along the way they pick up a stray waif in the shape of gypsy fortune teller Sim, who has her own dark connection to Moriarty. But while Sim is handy with a knife - rescuing the dynamic duo from all manner of tight spots with a flourish of her blade - she brings little else to proceedings, Girl with the Dragon Tattoo actress Noomi Rapace largely wasted in the role.

A more successful addition to proceedings is the inimitable Stephen Fry as Mycroft Holmes, Sherlock's older, lazier, smarter brother. Channelling his TV work as Bertie Wooster's supercilious butler Jeeves, Fry delivers a note-perfect performance, undermining young 'Shirley' at every turn. He also appears in the year's most unexpected and unnecessary nude scene in which we very nearly see Fry's fry.

Indeed, as with the first film, there is humour peppered throughout A Game of Shadows, most notably at the expense of Watson's wedding and subsequent honeymoon, but this time around the gags aren't always successful, Holmes's seemingly endless supply of one-liners failing to raise much more than a smile.

Moreover, when Sherlock isn't playing mind-games with Moriarty, he's something of a clown in this instalment, spending an inordinate amount of time flirting with or winding up Watson, and donning all manner of ridiculous disguises, including a particularly misjudged dress.

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