A Game of Dark Knights Should Set, Not Rise

Well, it falls out that the only thing I should write about on this quiet Thursday is the recently released second installment of Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows.

I'm not looking forward to the rest of this article, or the fallout it may generate. It's a dangerous game. I'll change directions often, sometimes in response to your moves, sometimes to anticipate your moves. I know you're a good player, so I'm going to give you my best game.

But let's try to keep it under 2 hours, okay? My main gripe isn't the length of the movie (the first one set my expectations), and I can sit through long movies, but my patience wears when the set-piece slow motion run through the forest is entirely ultra-slow for 10-minutes. By the way, those shots are fantastic... I hope you understand that you can't just put a 300 fps camera in a forest and start shooting these things. That is an entirely indoors set, brightly lit (because high shutter speed demands tons of light intensity), with trees and giant bullets added later (probably computer-generated), and then composited together in the editing phase. Amazing effect! Can we watch it for another 20 minutes?

Enough about that, as Watson would say, "Crack on!" What a useless and humourless expression. They use it more than once, and I have a suspicion that some producer insisted it's hilarious.

Before the movie, we saw the trailer for the next (final?) chapter in the new Batman reboot: The Dark Knight Rises. Yawn. The Dark Knight Brushes His Teeth. The Dark Knight Has a Shower, and Emerges a Bright New Day. This trailer was utterly unremarkable. When Christian Bale does his phlegmatic low-talking, at least we can read his lips. When Bane does exactly the same voice, he suffers from ninjitis: a mask over your mouth makes you unintelligible. OMG, Batman has a flying vehicle now? What originality.

Okay, that was just a gambit, see? I move in a way that invites you to follow me, but I'm actually setting up a different attack and getting you off-balance. Chess, see?

Here's the essential problem with the chess analogy: it doesn't fit. Anyone who knows how chess really works will see that the chess metaphor only works for those who know nothing about playing chess. If you don't play chess, and you think it's a good metaphor as a strategic game about trying to anticipate your opponent's moves, that's true. It's also a monumental mental struggle between two opponents who manipulate various pawns...also good, but the movie doesn't exploit that anyway. There should be more explanations about how a strategy works, and how the events and explosions are examples. If you're going to have a strong metaphor in your movie - that makes it into the title - make sure it fits and use it well.

Let's get to the Bartitsu, my area of interest and something this movie exploits in abundance. The fight sequences are even better than the first Holmes film, with more instances of what I'd call genuine Bartitsu. The low kicks (coup de pied bas) are used more liberally, but the jujitsu is just as lacking, except for one fine figure-four takedown that I almost cheered aloud.

But this business where Sherlock plans his moves ahead is getting out of hand. Holmes is not psychic. He's keenly observant and flawlessly logical in analysis. With that combination, many other characters think that he's clairvoyant... but it ought to be clear to the audience that it's pure brain power that achieves this effect. When he can predict which opponent will attack first and with which hand, it's getting out of hand. There's a self-referential visual joke about this, so the filmmakers are aware of the issue, but it doesn't jibe with the other uses of this device. Ah, I'm nitpicking.

And there's an unsettling recipe for an omelette.

The fights are not shot as well as the first movie, which was disappointing. I have to say that the clip of the street fight that I published previously looks better on YouTube than it did in the theatre. But I won't complain about that... Mr. Ryan continues to do stupendous work on these films with Bartitsu and Robert Downey Jr.'s wing chun background.

So. Bad movie? No. There was excitement. There were disguises. There were explosions. There was Stephen Fry as Mycroft! If you have any interest in Bartitsu or stage combat (why else would you be reading my ramblings?) then you must see it.