Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows (2011)

Director: Guy Ritchie

Cast: Robert Downey Jr., Jude Law, Noomi Rapace, Jared Harris

Have I Seen It Before: Yep.

Did I Like It: I was a little down on Sherlock Holmes (2009) when I re-watched it recently, feeling like it was taking stray elements of the Doyle Canon and packaging it into an assembly-line action movie. All of the ominous portents of the Moriarty (Harris) to follow in that original film come to pass here. That means this becomes a sausage of typical action movie sequels, filled with bits of the Doyle Canon.

And somehow, I found myself enjoying it more than I did the original. Why? There’s something to be said for those genre films that feel unencumbered by setting things up. There’s a breezy adventure to be had here. It also helps that everything that did work about the original has mostly stayed in place here. Rachel McAdams is tragically underused*, but Downey and Law’s chemistry is still firmly in place, and the rustic score and production design set this apart from other on-screen Holmeses and Watsons.

With a rebound like this, it’s kind of a wonder how this film series hasn’t continued with several more entries up until this point. Even in those uncertain years before Avengers: Endgame (2019) and Oppenheimer (2023), a return to Baker Street might have been a smart move for Downey’s career. There are even whispers of a return trip with this version of the detectives (although who knows if Ritchie will be on board) is still in the offing, but I have a hard time imagining such a film existing without it being primarily about Holmes and Watson being over the hell. That feels less fun, and like it has been done before.

Then again, blanching at the idea of “it’s been done before,” would mean that no one would ever play the detectives again.

*She may be the Paul Winfield of female movie stars tragically underused in franchise sequels. I’m looking in your direction, this film, and Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022).

Prometheus (2012)

Director: Ridley Scott

Cast: Noomi Rapace, Michael Fassbender, Guy Pearce, Idris Elba

Have I Seen It Before: Sure.

Did I Like It: Is it possible to give a film partial credit? The last entry in the Alien franchise*, Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s Alien Resurrection (1997) benefited from an (just ever so slightly) above average script, but was weighed down by visual effects that removed any of the threat from the xenomorphs. This is working with the other formula and hoping for some degree of better success. The visuals are often stunning. The interiors of the ship Prometheus pull elements from the design of the Nostromo in Alien (1979) but extend it into a new environment that is always interesting to look at. I almost don’t mind that I can’t even kind of believe that the tech on display in this film looks wildly more advanced than the tech on the Nostromo, despite that first film taking place thirty years later.

Then there’s the story. One of the great “what the hell is that?” moments of Alien is the landing party coming across the Space Jockey. Alien doesn’t feel the need to tell us everything about how that poor unfortunate soul got something to leap out of them. It is content instead to let us wonder about how deeply weird this universe might be the deeper into the cosmos you drift. Jumping off with the idea of how that guy got into that seat is a shaky one to begin with. Jamming all of the wonder of that moment into its own two hour movie is pretty much guaranteed to dampen that wonder when one goes back to watch Alien again. But the film isn’t even really about that. It’s about those people, but LV-426 is kept as far away as possible. Even those squirrelly xenomorphs are only injected—sort of—as an afterthought that reeks of a studio note. How does one classify a bad idea that’s ultimately also a half-measure? “Uneven” is probably the nicest one for which I can immediately reach.

*I’m not looking in your direction any vs. Predator films, not because I’m looking down at you, but more because I can make the following point more smoothly without you getting in the way.