Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows is a solid sequel, but doesn’t really advance the story or bring much new to the series.

Picking up shortly after the first film, Sherlock Holmes is still in hot pursuit of Moriarty. The mastermind has been bombing multiple locations around England and causing a lot of stress upon Europe. Meanwhile, Watson has been busy preparing to get married over the last few months and, left alone, Holmes has been slowly losing his sanity ever since. It’s when the two go out for Watson’s stag party that plot begins to get put in motion. Holmes soon discovers that the closer he gets to Moriarty, the more at risk those around him become, and Holmes must do whatever he can to protect them.

The plot for the film is thinner then the twists and turns would leave you to believe and the end game hinges on a character connection that the film fails to develop. That connection is based around a gypsy fortune teller, Simza, and her brother whom is wrapped up in the world of Moriarty. We never get to really know her, nor why we should care for her brother, other than the fact that they are important plot devices. The characterizations across the board are rather lacking and we never get to know any of the new faces. What drives Moriarty to being a master villain; what is the importance of Sherlock’s brother Mycroft; why does Mycroft show up to do nothing; why does Moriarity’s number two want to help in this sinister plot? None of these things are explored and it’s disappointing since all of these guys seem like they could be interesting characters if we got to know them at all. Irene Adler, from the first film, is also an interesting and conflicted character we get to know nothing more about here and one wonders why everything got so stripped down.

The stripping down of the characters was almost surely intended to streamline the picture into a more straight forward action film and thankfully for the creative team the action is pretty good. The film does take awhile to get going, the first 35 minutes or so of the film gets quite sloppy, but once Holmes and Watson are reunited on the train the film finds its rhythm. From here the film touches on a lot of the gimmicks of the first film, never quite as interesting or surpassing the original, but the banter and relationship of the leads keeps us engaged.

Guy Ritchie is sure to make the film look great and the production design can’t be faulted. While the super slow mo repeat here doesn’t touch the exploding factory bit in the first film, the imagery is still pretty cool none the less. The action beat on the train was the most fun of the picture and I wish they had some of that scenes ingenuity in the finale rather than just a dueling “Sherlocking” moment. And that castle, as beautiful as it is, I don’t think it could exist in real life; at least they used the waterfall to nice affect.

The film’s humor stays fairly intact over the course of the picture, thankfully, and that is due to the odd performance and demeanor of Robert Downey Jr.’s Holmes. Downey plays the part even one more wavelength off from everyone else this time around and the character is better for it. He makes Holmes such a joy to watch that it makes the film’s short comings easier to swallow. Downey’s relationship with Law is almost equally compelling and is again another big plus for the movie. Law’s Watson was one of my favorite elements of the first film and he doesn’t disappoint in the sequel. He is clearly having a lot of fun in the role and his presence is infectious. The rest of the cast doesn’t really stand up to the leads, but as I mentioned above they don’t have a lot to do either. Jared Harris is a bit too one dimensional as Moriarty and I never really was all that scared of him. Stephen Fry gets to act silly once or twice as the ever happy Mycroft, but again, nothing compelling here. Noomi Rapace makes her English language debut as Simza and while she doesn’t get anything interesting to do either, she at least showed she might be able to transition from being just the Swedish “Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.”

In the end, Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows is a fun enough time but I’m not sure if I would take it over the original. Good action and the great duo of Downey and Law make the film worth watching; just don’t expect much else beyond having a good time. A bit more character development and plot could have gone a long way here and I hope in the eventual sequel they try to mix things up a bit instead of giving us a safe and familiar sequel.

Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows is a B-

Though it is still debatable if Robert Downey Jr. or Wishbone makes a better Sherlock Holmes, the memorable quality of Downey’s performance two years ago as the classic detective will be impossible to forget.  He made what I assumed to be a stodgy, pipe-smoking British guy eccentrically cool, something that I couldn’t help get enough of.

“But Lauren, why is the movie subtitled A Game of Shadows?”  Well reader that I just made up for my writing purposes, I am glad you asked!  I just wish I could give you the answer.  You see, throughout the first film there was a man who lurked in the shadows as Sherlock thwarted his underlings in their attempts to do his bidding, so much so that his hidden hair grew a few more gray strands (I assume).  He grew so angry that shortly into this film he decided to come out from the shadows and fight against Sherlock head-to-head.

Which is the first problem with Professor Moriarty.  Minus one unforgivable act shortly into the film, a man who orchestrated something so maniacal and multifaceted before is left with a few lame tricks.  He is still presented as an incredibly ingenious man capable of giving Holmes a run for his money, but this is not always apparent this time around, especially when his motives are revealed.  They are so generic that they make it impossible to remember the man he is actually supposed to be.

But hey, at least we still have Sherlock to solve these mysteries along with his trusted friend Watson.  Downey and Jude Law still have the strong chemistry of their bromance in tact, but the dynamic is shifted slightly when Noomi Rapace is thrown in as a gypsy to represent the X chromosome, taking the place of Rachel McAdams’ thief who makes Holmes’ brain skip and stick like a poorly oiled machine.  Her character is not one that can be done away with because of her connection to the story, but she is far from an integral cast member in terms of what is asked of her.  Basically her character boils down to this: “Oh, you need to see that person?  Because of my history I can make that happen.  Oh, you need to go to this country?  My gypsy lifestyle makes me capable taking you there.”  In other words, she is solely there as an excuse to make certain tasks simple enough, adding little else to the story.

Considering all of the flaws, the one thing that does still have its charm is Holmes when he is putting pieces of the puzzle together.  Or maybe I should clarify that he is still up on creating some ridiculous disguises.  In actuality, other than a few moments of sleuthiness that don’t get the level of focus received in the first film, as well as his ability to see the future in fights, his skill set really does seem to take a back seat.  Gone are the days in which he must figure out how a man has come back to life to be a magical being capable of lighting a man on fire.  Now he is fighting a man of normal means.  In other words, there is a lot more of the ordinary.  He fights with fists, he chases killers, killers chase him, and he gets shot at (often in slow motion).

Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows still is enjoyable thanks to the cast and an amazing character created by Downey, but the one thing this film really is missing is a mystery to solve.  Instead it is more of a race to the end to beat another flesh and blood man before he accomplishes what he set out to do.

Final Grade: B-

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Tim Burton’s latest collaboration with Johnny Depp is a gigantic, uninspired, and boring mess of an adaptation of the Alice in Wonderland mythology.

The story is a sequel to Disney’s previous animated version of Alice in Wonderland and picks up some years later with Alice, now nineteen, about to be married off to the son of an old family friend that is very well to do but Alice is still haunted? By reoccurring “dreams” of her trip to Wonderland as a child.  When the young man proposes to her in front of a giant crowd at a prearranged engagement party, Alice gets cold feat and runs off into the garden, chasing the white rabbit, and down into a rabbit hole and back into the world of Wonderland.  The look of the place has changed significantly and we discover from a few familiar faces that there is a long standing search for Alice and they aren’t quite sure if this Alice is the real one.  The prophecy is that Alice will return to Wonderland to rid it of the tyrant Red Queen and restore peace to the once jovial nation.

Now, I have a lot of problems with this film, but first and foremost I just didn’t find it at all that engaging or entertaining.  When the film isn’t seemingly just walking down memory lane of Wonderland, and it does a lot of this for the first hour, the story they try to concoct is so unoriginal and uninspired it just never grabs you.  The plot also has countless gapping holes in it, just ignores logic, and makes no sense on a number of occasions.  From the desperate attempt to give the Mad Hater some depth to his character, the complete surface depth of the evil characters, the use of CGI for Crispin Glover’s body, and the fact that nobody in Wonderland seems to like the Red Queen yet she is some how in power, these are just the tipping point of problems I have without spoiling things.

Possibly my biggest issue with the film is Alice’s demeanor and logic on her being in Wonderland.  She is convinced this experience is a dream, even though her old method of waking up from one doesn’t work.  Also, she doesn’t seem to remember or recognize Wonderland, how is this possible?  It doesn’t look all that different and she has previously told us that she is still having “dreams” about her first trip to Wonderland so why is everything so foreign to her?  It takes 95% of the movie to unfold before she starts to finally come to this realization and I don’t know if she ever acknowledges that she really had been here before, but more or less just bought into the laid out prophecy.

Burton given this endless world of imagination brings next to nothing new to table and the film is creatively dry if you ask me.  The moments that work in the film are re-hashes of the animated film, Cheshire Cat and the Blue Caterpillar are a pair of the very few highlights, and I just didn’t find the world incredibly rich or wondrous.  Also of note, the use of 3-D is just as uninspired and pointless and not necessary for the viewing enjoyment of the picture.  Avatar has spoiled us and I think a lot of the 3-D pictures this year will come across as a disappointment in that element as most directors are still trying to figure out how to use the medium.  The CGI in the picture, especially for one that cost two hundred million dollars, was also not that impressive stylistically or consistently.  There are a number of shots in the picture that do look gangbusters, don’t get me wrong, but for every winner there are two shots that look a little too eh.  Danny Elfman’s score is even an uninspired and unnoticeable element to the film.

The acting work in the film is also nothing to write home about and none of the on screen actors do anything special for the entirety of the picture.  Helena Bonham Carter is the highlight as the Red Queen but her part gets stale and repetitive in a hurry.  Johnny Depp’s interpretation of the Mad Hatter is bad weird and never really worked for me as he tried to give him a dark side, or something, on the inside.  The kookiness of the character never charms or is all that funny and it is probably one of the worst turns of the gifted actor’s careers.  Mia Wasikowska stars as Alice and she is unfortunately really flat and has no pep what so ever in the picture.  She dully delivers her lines and doesn’t have the cheery aloofness Alice has in the animated classic, Wasikowska does come a bit alive in the third act.  Anne Hathaway needs to put her hands down, Crispin Glover does alright and kind of weird work, but most of the voice actors do solid jobs in their roles.  Stephen Fry as the Cheshire Cat and Alan Rickman as Blue Caterpillar are the highlights of the voice actors, and the voice casting was one of the few things Burton got right.

In the end, Alice in Wonderland is nothing but a big mess.  Where the original film was a crazy and tripped out adventure through this mysterious and wondrous world, Burton and company try and give this iteration a plot that is stale, uninspired, and unoriginal that leaves us scratching our heads.  Beyond being unoriginal the film doesn’t really flow very well, idling with nothing much happening for the majority of the picture, and then tries to patch together a plot that makes no sense with gaping plot holes to get us to the finale.  The acting is weak, the direction uninspired, effects that are dull, and 3D that is pointless and misused there is nothing to really recommend about this picture.  A front runner for biggest flop of the year due to the talent involved, there are at least a couple characters and scenes worth checking out but this is a rental at best and the worst Burton and Depp film to date by a wide margin.

Alice and Wonderland is a F