The Shadows are nearly upon us...

Well we have only two days to go to the UK release of Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows and I plan to see it on the 18th.

Some of you may wonder, given my lukewarm response to the first instalment, why I am going to see it. Well I guess that it is for two reasons - one perhaps more optimistic than the other.

Firstly I want to see it because it is a Holmes film (no matter how fast and loose it plays with the source material) and I really want it to improve upon the first. Those of you who hated the first outing will probably be saying that won’t be difficult how could it be any worse?

It has to be said that there were, as with almost any Holmes film, good bits as well as bad. I have, in the past, singled out the depiction of Watson by Jude Law as one such positive. The more I think about his performance the more I regard it as combining the best elements of those given by David Burke and Ian Hart (minus the latter’s overt aggression).

However there was more that was good in the film than Law’s Watson. An interesting perspective was taken on the relationship between Watson and Holmes that really showed Watson as the man that humanised Holmes. Holmes without Watson was shown to be somewhat adrift and socially awkward. Holmes’s issues with what he saw as the intrusion of Mary Morstan were also very well conveyed. Small points perhaps but important ones I feel. It was also, it has to be said, a good time in the cinema. I cannot say that I was ever bored even though I was occasionally irritated by the liberties that were taken.

The second reason for wanting to see it is that I simply must in the interests of completeness. In order to make my assessment of what is good and bad in the world of screen Holmes I must see as much as possible. When I was a child I strongly suspected that I would not like broccoli however until I actually tried it I did not know for sure (I hate it by the way). It is very much the same for this film.

As last time I shall evaluate it from two perspectives. Its faithfulness (or not) to the source material and how it works as a fun time in the cinema.