DEATH OF TRADITIONAL CINEMA

Holmes and Watson are back, with Holmes neck deep in intrigue and hijinks, and Watson always ready to back him up, much to his annoyance. Guy Ritchie has managed to film this Sir Arthur Conan Doyle classic well, thanks also to the charm and talent of his two leads. However, A GAME OF SHADOWS may pale in comparison to its predecessor, especially when Mark Strong (Lord Blackwood from the first film) seemed a more vile character than Prof. James Moriarty (Jared Harris), and Moriarty is supposedly a formidable foe for Sherlock.  The action is still fast and funny, yet we already saw plenty of that in the first film. Noomi Rapace as a gypsy woman embroiled in the intrigue is welcome, but forgettable. The story is really a bromance between Holmes and Watson that a female decorative is hardly necessary.  I liked that new characters brought additional flavor to the story. Stephen Fry as Holmes's brother is hilarious, and it's good to see Watson's new wife serve a higher purpose...

Guy Ritchie was born to do gangster films. LOCK, STOCK AND TWO SMOKING BARRELS is downright inventive and funny; its unofficial sequel, SNATCH is equally enjoyable. ROCK N' ROLLA is a little over-the-top, but still worth watching. So when a guy like Ritchie (I haven't seen SWEPT AWAY, and I'm not planning to) decides to toy with our minds via the convoluted and chopsuey cinematic mess that is REVOLVER, there goes the cardinal rule about visionary filmmakers and that one time that they hand us a piece of crap.  A character in the mockumentary FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION by Christopher Guest said: "I always tell my students, 'you can hand me a piece of crap wrapped in a big red bow, but at the end of the day it is still a piece of crap wrapped in a big red bow'." While I cannot easily dismiss REVOLVER as crap, the big red bow mentioned is the tirade of blinding colors, cartoonish editing, the Tarantino ripoffs (the anime use is just one example), and the attemp...