What can you say about Guy Ritchie’s “Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows” that wasn’t said previously about Ritchie’s Baker Street reboot from 2009, “Sherlock Holmes”?
That it’s bigger, louder and more expensive? That’s hardly a shock from a sequel. Indeed, it’s kind of de rigueur, right?
How about the fact that it really wasn’t called for? Again, not an unusual response with a sequel, particularly a sequel to a movie like this one’s predecessor.
The latter film was splashy, noisy and nonsensical. It also had virtually nothing to do with the stories written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, aside from stealing the names of the two central characters.
Neither does “Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows,” a generic big-budget action film of mind-numbing pointlessness. It is not just a movie in which you can zone out for long stretches without really missing anything; this film forces you to do so. It should be advertised as the world’s loudest somnolence-inducer.
This review continues on my website.