Ho Ho Holmes

Sherlock sequel improves on the formula, and Charlize shows her dark side

(Dec. 22, 2011) SHERLOCK HOLMES: A GAME OF SHADOWS. I didn’t exactly dislike Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes, but I can’t say it left much of an impression on me, either. Like a lot of people, I enjoyed the fighting but had a hard time accepting Holmes as a street brawler. Plus I found the atmosphere oppressive and distracting. Fortunately, I enjoy Robert Downey, Jr., and Jude Law, and the experience was salvaged by their jovial antagonism.

The sequel finds all the positive qualities of the first installment firmly in place: Downey is pleasantly manic and obsessed, and Law reprises Watson with customarily stiff upper lip and reluctant amusement at his companion’s antics. They’re joined by a sterling supporting cast, including Jared Harris as calculating sadist-genius James Moriarty and the eminently likeable Stephen Fry as Mycroft, Holmes’s politically entrenched weirdo brother.

Where the first movie felt like a loose assemblage of would-be set-pieces held together by “check this out” visual trickery, this follow-up is actually cohesive. It’s still huge and sprawling, but those qualities actually serve the story, which involves a Machiavellian plot by Moriarty to shake the very foundations of Europe’s political and economic stability. It’s not a revelation in screenwriting, but there are enough little twists and turns and a meaty enough through-line to sustain the countless action sequences.

Ritchie seems to have realized that he was taking himself a little too seriously last time (his primary Achilles’ heel as a filmmaker … Revolver, anyone?). Shadows benefits from a much-needed dose of fun. It’s still over-the-top — production-designed and fight-choreographed within an inch of its life. But the movie’s tone more closely follows the droll dynamic between Downey and Law. Even the overused device wherein Holmes anticipates an attacker’s every move, then counters in slow-motion before replaying the whole sequence at full-speed, gets turned on its ear a few times.

Shadows is an unapologetically huge holiday blockbuster. Expensive looking and action packed, it gleefully romps through turn-of-the-20th-century Europe. I appreciate it on that level, and for improving on the formula. PG13. 129m. At the Broadway, Mill Creek, Minorand Fortuna.

YOUNG ADULT comes from a completely different end of the cinematic spectrum. Small and observational, this movie is as deliberate and focused as a good short story.

Charlize Theron plays Mavis Gary, a self-destructive alcoholic narcissist who has achieved minor success ghost-writing a series of teen novels. Facing the imminent cancellation of her book series and the drain-circling routine of her daily life, Mavis heads back to her much-loathed hometown in rural Minnesota. Her goal is to steal her high school boyfriend from his loving wife and new daughter. To everybody except Mavis, this is clearly a terrible idea, but she soldiers on anyway because she’s broken, lost and alone.

Along the way she reconnects with former classmate Matt Freehauf (Patton Oswalt), an overweight nerd still trying to recover from a savage beating he took in high school at the hands of some bigoted meatheads. He and Mavis develop an uncomfortable not-quite-friendship, mostly because they both like to get drunk.

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