Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows

When you’re making a sequel to a surprisingly successful movie, there’s always the question of whether it will live up to expectations. This goes doubly so when said sequel is bringing in a classic villain.

And thus we have the dilemma that faces Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows. Not only does it have to follow in the footsteps of Sherlock Holmes, which was so very much fun, but it brought in Moriarty, Holmes’s greatest enemy.

In A Game of Shadows, Holmes has buried himself in untangling a conspiracy involving bombings and assassinations that are slowly pushing the world to the brink of war. Though he knows Professor James Moriarty is behind it, Holmes does not yet know the how or the why.

Who's going to blink first?

He “encourages” the newlywed Watson to come with him to continental Europe, where they engage in a deadly game, fighting to get one step ahead of the devious Moriarty, perhaps the only man in the world who rivals Holmes’s prodigious intellect.

Admittedly, the movie gets off to a rocky start. Though it’s nice to see Irene Adler (Rachel McAdams) again, the beginning chase and fight just doesn’t grab you the same way as the first scene in Sherlock Holmes. It seems a little lighter, perhaps because it’s taking place during the day, rather than at night, and involves more verbal sparring between Holmes and Adler.

In fact, it’s not until Adler has her meeting with Moriarty that the movie really finds its footing. (And talk about a great way to introduce the face of the man we only saw in shadows in the previous film. We see just how powerful Moriarty really is and how far his reach extends.) But once it does, it settles in and takes off.

Both Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law reprise their roles as Holmes and Watson, respectively, and they’re just as good in this movie as they were in the first one. After we left the movie, my brother said he would watch a movie that was nothing but Holmes and Watson talking for two hours, and I have to agree.

They bicker like an old married couple, and there are many times you wouldn’t blame Watson for punching Holmes in the face. However, they are still best friends, and that comes through no matter what they do.

Very dashing detectives.

Casting Stephen Fry as Mycroft Holmes, Sherlock’s older brother, was a stroke of genius. Fry is a phenomenal actor, and he fits Mycroft like a glove. He steals the show every time he’s on screen, and the scene between him and Watson’s wife, Mary, is just hilarious.

But the most compelling part of the movie is easily the game between Holmes and Moriarty. For once, Holmes has found someone who is his mental equal, and that makes their every interaction tense and fascinating, as each tries to outwit and out-think the other.

Each time they come together, it stands out: their initial meeting, the powerfully silent encounter at the opera, and most especially, their final confrontation. The chess game between the two is absolutely brilliant, and more than makes up for the slow beginning.

And I would be remiss talking about this movie without mentioning the score, which I have listened to virtually nonstop since I purchased it the day after Christmas. Hans Zimmer really outdoes himself with this one. It expands on some of the musical themes from the first movie and adds some really excellent new ones on its own. (Listen to “Romanian Wind,” if you get a chance, and I dare you not to dance at least a little when you hear it.)

Of course, there were aspects that didn’t work. Though Noomi Rapace did a good job as Sim, the gypsy woman who aids Holmes and Watson in their search, she was not quite as memorable as the other characters. Plus, the “fight vision,” where Holmes predicts a fight and the moves his opponents will make before having the fight itself, has a slightly different format, and it doesn’t work quite as well as it did in the first movie.

But really, those are minor nitpicks. Overall, A Game of Shadows is an entertaining movie and a worthy successor to the first one. If you get a chance, go see it in theaters. And if you don’t get a chance to catch it in theaters, be sure to rent it the second you can.

Pictures from ComingSoon.net and most likely copyright Warner Bros. Pictures.

The Critic Finishes NaNo 2011

Holy cow on a cracker, I can’t believe it’s over. This November has flown by. I still haven’t registered that Thursday was December 1, Friday was December 2, and now I’ve got to worry about Christmas shopping.

The last week and a half of NaNo was probably the most manic, which is not unusual. After all, it’s Thanksgiving, which typically means a 4-day weekend at the very least, and all the traveling to visit family that a holiday entails.

Of course, that wreaked havoc on my plan to write every day, because after staying up till midnight or 1 a.m. talking to my cousins, I had to haul into my bedroom, pull out the laptop, and pound out at least 100 words.

Once I got started, it was relatively easy to get 300-400 words, but boy, was I wiped out afterwards.

Plus, November 26 was the first annual Tulsa Write-A-Thon, also known as “The Critic Writes 5,000 Words in Four Hours.”

Because when you factor in the pictures, the goofing off, the setting up, the making of the cheese dip, and the “oh God it’s 4:30 and I’ve got 2200 words left” paranoia, I was lucky to get four hours of writing in.

For the Write-A-Thon, we booked a meeting room for 6 hours (we wanted to take it easy for our first one) and had everybody bring food and drinks and mobile writing instruments (read: notebooks — the paper kind — and laptops — the computer kind). More than a dozen people showed up, at least half brought food, and overall it was a lot of fun.

My goal was to write at least 5,000 words during the write-a-thon with the goal of raising money for the Office of Letters & Light, which is the nonprofit that runs National Novel Writing Month. NaNo has meant a lot to me over the past few years, and one of the reasons I was writing was to give something back.

Generally the most-used words in my novel. I am never again writing a main character who has nine letters in her name.

Ultimately, we raised about $200, which is pretty respectable for our first year doing this.

The last few days of the month were filled with Facebook posts and chat room celebrations as people jumped, ran, and crawled their way across the 50,000-word mark.

There are few things more awesome than watching somebody achieve a goal that they never thought they would. One of the most-said things during NaNo (aside from the advice to add pirates, ninjas, or blow something up) is that you never know until you try.

We saw people top 1,500 words in a 30-minute writing challenge when they didn’t think they’d be able to get more than 600 or 700. We had people crank out 7,000 words in the last day to hit their goal. And we had one WriMo finish her novel — a 102,000-word behemoth — with 41 minutes to spare.

That right there? That’s why I come back to this year after year.

NaNo is the reason I have 5 different novels in various stages of completion, from the “oh God not another rewrite” stage to the “good thing first drafts are supposed to be terrible” stage to the “I probably should finish this soon” stage.

NaNo is the reason I have made a solid group of writing friends here in Tulsa.

And NaNo is the reason that I remembered, five years ago, why I love to write.

NaNo 2011 by the Numbers

Novel Stuff
Final official word count: 62,409/50,000
Most words written in a day: 6,017
Fewest words written in a day: 231
Number of pages in MS Word: 97 (Cambria, 11 pt., single-spaced)
Number of characters (with spaces): 348,994 (the equivalent of almost 2,493 tweets)
Number of paragraphs: 2,117
Number of author notes: 2 (only two?)

Write-in Stuff
Number of hours spent at write-ins: 38
Average write-in attendance: 11 people
Highest number of attendees at a write-in: 23
Lowest number of attendees at a write-in: 9
Number of popsicle sticks that fell off the graveyard: 10
Number of gravestones in the character graveyard: …I’m not counting that high. We’re a bloodthirsty bunch.

Here. You count them.

Random Stuff
Number of times Word froze on me: 14
Number of hours spent listening to Abney Park: 30
Number of hours spent listening to the Sherlock Holmes score: 10
Number of tea bags consumed: 18 pumpkin spice, 15 cinnamon vanilla, and 40 English breakfast

And, my final excerpt (again, with the unedited thing):

“I left Mistress Genevieve in your care,” Wilson said, his voice as even as ever. “You said that she was safe with you. You lied.”

The metal fingers clenched tighter, and Alastair had to wedge his own hands under Wilson’s fingers before he was choked. Below him was nothing but air. His feet kicked uselessly. “The ship was attacked by a dragon. I had slightly more pressing concerns!”

If that news affected Wilson’s judgment, the automaton did not show it. “You lied. I said that if Mistress Genevieve came to harm, I would kill you. I do not lie, Mr. Cole.”

God damn it, this is not how I pictured dying: thrown off a ship by a pissed-off automaton. A pissed-off automaton that was strangling him, on that note. Alastair fought to breathe. “If you kill me, Wilson, you won’t be able to get her back.”

“I do not believe you, Mr. Cole.”

Trailer Park – Sherlock Holmes and John Carter

In the past week, we’ve been lucky enough to get the trailers for two movies that I, personally, am totally stoked to see.

Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows

Holmes and Watson are back! Joined by the Gypsy fortune teller, Sim, the friends are out to find out the truth behind the death of the Crown Prince of Austria. However, that’s just one piece of a puzzle constructed by Professor Moriarty, perhaps the only man in the world who’s as smart as Holmes, and who always seems to be one step ahead…

I LOVED Sherlock Holmes, and this one looks to be just as fun as its predecessor.

John Carter

Based on the (surprisingly awesome) novels by Tarzan creator Edgar Rice Burroughs, John Carter is about a Civil War vet who mysteriously wakes up on Mars. He’s captured by the notoriously vicious Green Men of Mars, but becomes an icon among them because of his amazing fighting prowess. He then falls in love with Dejah Thoris, a princess of the Red Men of Mars who has also been captured by the green Martians, and vows to return her to her people.

It’s difficult to tell from the trailer how much of the story they’ll follow, but it’s a nice teaser for the film. I love the John Carter books, and I am really, really looking forward to seeing this on the big screen.