All the way through 2010’s Sherlock Holmes, a shadowy figure lurked in the background who seemed to have a finger in every pie and used the mayhem Sherlock was involved with to his own ends. In A Game Of Shadows that figure steps forward, with Jared Harris as Professor James Moriarty, who is Sherlock’s intellectual equal, even if he uses his brains for very different ends.

A series of explosions is rocking Europe and threaten to destabilise the already tenuous peace between the nations, with war a very real possibility. As you’d expect, Sherlock is soon deep in this conspiracy and has very quickly worked out that Moriarty is involved. However it’s not enough to know who’s behind it, as there’s no tangible evidence. As a result Holmes must investigate and work out Moriarty’s end game in order to stop the villain.

This sets Sherlock off on a quest across Europe, from Britain to France then on to Germany and Switzerland, tracking down exactly what Moriarty is up to and why he’s so keen to cause political mayhem. However it soon becomes apparent that while the fate of Western Europe swirls around them, the men are as interested in the intellectual tussle they’re become embroiled in as they are in the fate of the world around them.

Of course Jude Law’s Watson is still around, even if he’s not meant to be. He’s supposed to leave Holmes’ madcap investigations behind when he marries, but the bromance cannot be broken up that easily, especially as Sherlock knows that by going after Moriarty, the master villain will target Watson.

With A Game Of Shadows, it’s very much the case that if you liked the first one, you’ll probably like the second. There is a slight sense of diminishing returns, as what felt fresh and new first time around inevitably lacks the novelty it had. However an action-packed, witty and irreverent Downey Jr. as Sherlock is still a lot of fun, and there are some very good set-pieces and a few laugh out loud moments. It’s difficult to escape the sense that a lot of the middle is filler which mainly exists because there needs to be something between the entertaining beginning and the exciting, well written ending. However it’s amiable enough, and there are some fun bits and pieces, even if the middle hour doesn’t really add up to an awful lot.

It’s also a bit of a shame they replaced the feisty Rachel McAdams as Irene Adler with the rather more subdued presence of Noomi Rapace as the gypsy Sim. Whereas Irene had spunk (which is still there in the few scenes she has at the start of the movie), Sim mainly feels unnecessary. Indeed there are moments where you wonder if she was only added to the script so that Holmes & Watson don’t seem even gayer than they already deliberately are.

Indeed the film spends an awful lot of time playing with exactly what Holmes’ feelings for Watson are, so that while he may start out the film romancing Irene Adler, there’s little doubt he’d prefer to spend his time with Watson. Exactly what’s going on between them is deliberately left unspoken as it’s fun to play with it, and there are times where it seems Sherlock is a genius about everything other than how to define his relationship with Watson. A Game Of Shadows also introduces Sherlock’s brother Mycroft (Stephen Fry), who is slightly superfluous but suggests ‘Sherly’ came from a household that didn’t have much time for women, which is why he always looks to another man for companionship and camaraderie.

A Game Of Shadows is full-on popcorn entertainment, which may be a hair’s breadth less fun that its predecessor but still provides more than enough wit, action and fast-paced thrills to make it worthwhile. Just ignore the fact the middle feels like filler and that if you start thinking about the plot Sherlock and Moriarty don’t seems half as smart as they think they are, and you’ll have a whole lot of fun.

As you’d hope, the Blu-ray provides excellent picture quality, with the inky, deep blacks particularly noticeable in the often high-contrast action scenes, where bright pools of light mix with darkness. It all looks superb, really bringing out the wonderful production design the film is filled with (and which has been a big part of why both Holmes movies have been such a success – presenting a fantasy Victorian Europe which still manages to feel rather gritty and real). The sound is also excellent, with the DTS soundtrack giving your speakers a workout when the action gets explosive.

However the real reason to get the film on Blu-ray is the superb Maximum Movie Mode. Warner Bros. really is good at these for their key releases, so that you watch the film and it’s interspersed with relevant featurettes, interviews, stills and various other bits and pieces that pop up and give you a great overview of the film and its making. This one is hosted by Robert Downey Jr. who adds an extra bit of fun to the experience. It’s all extremely well done and well worth spending some time with.

Overall Verdict: It may not be quite as much rollicking fun as the first instalment, but A Game Of Shadows is still an entertaining, worthy sequel, given a great Blu-ray release.

Special Features:
Maximum Movie Mode Hosted By Robert Downey Jr.
Picture In Picture
Storyboards
Focus Points
Stills Galleries

Reviewer: Tim Isaac

Sherlock Holmes: A Game Of Shadows is available on Blu-ray Triple play, DVD and digital download 14th May. Pre-order here
© 2012 Warner Bros. Ent. All Rights reserved

A man is on a subway train and notices a beautiful woman sitting opposite. Their eyes meet, and each smiles at the other. When the train gets to her stop, she stands up. The man stands too, coming up behind her where their hands brush and a jolt of electricity passes between them. He follows her off the train but in the jumble of people loses her. In most films this would be the start of a great love story – two lost souls destined to find each other again. However even in the first few minutes it’s clear Shame will not be that kind of story, signalling right at the beginning that the Hollywood idea of sex and romance isn’t real.

Michael Fassbender is Brandon, who’s living in New York, has a good job, nice apartment and on the outside seems to be living the high life. However it soon becomes clear he’s reaching a point of desperation, using sex as a way to feel alive – even if only briefly – but which merely ends up highlighting the emptiness of his life and prevents him from finding anything real to connect to.

After trying to ignore his sister’s incessant phone calls, Sissy (Carey Mulligan) turns up on his doorstep needing somewhere to live. Her presence begins to bring Brandon’s life into focus, and as he sees himself reflected in the damage that’s etched onto her face, as well as comparing her almost despairing need for love and validation with his succession of meaningless sexual encounters, his existence begins to fragment. When she sleeps with his boss, blurring the lines of the worlds that he’s just about managed to keep separate from each other, his life plunges downward, with the main question being whether he or Sissy hits rock bottom first.

As you can tell from that synopsis, this is not a film full of rainbows and puppy dogs. It is bleak, spare and often rather dark, with moments of painful humanity contrasting sharply with the rawness on display elsewhere.

Fassbender and Mulligan really give themselves to their performance. Indeed while a lot of fuss has been made about Fassbender getting his cock out, it’s not really on display much more than quite a lot of others actors have let it all hang out in the past (indeed, Ewan McGregor’s made a career out of it), but it seems like it because of the performance. The exposure is Fassbender not holding anything back in portraying the damaged soul of Brandon, rather than in the presence of his penis.

It’s certainly not a film that offers easy answers though. It’s filled with long shots where the camera stays trained on the characters longer than is comfortable, where the audience is asked to fill in the gaps. There’s no point where Brandon or Sissy spill out every issue they’re dealing with and how they got to be such damaged people. There are hints that there were major problems in their childhood, but Shame isn’t interested in the easy answer of blaming their problems on that, instead looking at the anger and never ending search for a feeling of stability and happiness they’re both trapped in now.

Some will undoubtedly find Shame dull and too bleak for its own good, but give it a chance and it works under your skin as you begin to feel Brandon’s sorrow, who is his own worst enemy and can’t find a way to make life tolerable except to medicate himself with no strings attached sex.

The fact the film doesn’t hold the audience’s hand does make a scene towards the end potentially awkward. At one point Brandon’s desperate need for sex leads him to the backrooms of a gay club, where he knows he can find a meaningless blow job. You could see this as saying having gay sex is some sort of low point – oh my god, he’s so desperate he’d even sleep with a man! And while there’s some truth in that, it’s more about how sex for him has become so detached that the release is more important than where he gets it, rather than suggesting going gay intrinsically means you’ve reached the nadir of existence. Some critics have taken issue with the scene and indeed on its own it would be problematic, but taken within the scheme of the film it kinda makes sense.

The picture quality on the Blu-ray is good, which is more important than you might expect for a character drama. The high contrast, desaturated world the film presents is rendered perfectly, allowing you to fully experience the cleverly designed shot composition and editing. It also highlights director Steve McQueen’s vision of New York as a virtually empty wasteland, offering small hubs of connection, and where the starker the light shone on something the less visible it is. Indeed with Brandon’s nudity, it’s noticeable that while removing his clothes for strangers isn’t a problem, he keeps some clothes on if the sex might actually mean something.

The Blu-ray includes a half-hour Q&A with Michael Fassbender shot at a screening earlier this year (and which you can watch here, to give you a taste), as well as short, interesting interviews with Fassbender and Mulligan.

Overall Verdict: Not a fun watch, but Shame is a deep, extremely well made character study of sexual addiction, with superb direction from Steve McQueen and absolutely raw performances from Fassbender & Mulligan, all held together by Abi Morgan’s insightful script.

Special Features:
Michael Fassbender Q&A
Interview With Michael Fassbender
Interview With Carey Mulligan
Trailer

Reviewer: Tim Isaac