A non-Sherlock Sherlock Holmes review? A game of shadows!

 

OK, so when I was writing my review of Sherlock: The Abominable Bride…. I kept wanting to go back and review a different Sherlock adaptation.

So, that is what I am doing today. Sherlock Holmes: A game of shadows. The second Sherlock Holmes film starring Robert Downey Junior. Also, as it happens, the first film I saw RDJ in. You could say that this was my gateway film into RDJ, who was my gateway actor into the Marvel Cinematic Universe. So this film has a lot to answer for. In a good way.

And while I am generally not keen to rewatch Sherlock… I am always very happy to rewatch this film. So, let’s go through the reasons why.

Starting, of course, at the beginning. We open with John typing a story. He sets the scene. We are shortly pre-WWI, and tensions between France and Germany are being raised by a series of bombings.

Sherlock, obviously, is investigating. He’s in London, following a familiar figure. Irene Adler.

Now, I know that I have frequently said that I hate the fact that Irene Adler is often portrayed as Holmes’ love interest. I stand by that.

But I also… kind of like this Irene Adler. I would like her considerably more if she was called something else, but still. She is, in this universe, a master criminal. She darts around the criminal underworld as easily as she does around the highest houses in Europe. She is every bit a match for Sherlock Holmes, and she frequently goes to great lengths to prove it.

On this particular day, Sherlock suspects that she is on some nefarious business, and sets about following her through a market. He creeps up behind her in disguise, and asks for details about the odd package she is carrying. They agree to meet for dinner, then… Irene sets her bodyguards on him.

Typical.

Anyway, onto the first fight scene, set to a whistled Eine Kleine Nachtmusik. The music in this film, by the way, is fantastic.

As is the fighting. One of the interesting things about this film is that… it’s an action film. A Sherlock Holmes action film. So it features Holmes showing off his fantastic brain by out-thinking every opponent he faces, predicting their movements, and then attacking their weaknesses.

It’s just good fun all round.

So, Sherlock takes on the four guards. At first, he seems to be losing, but then he stops, engages his brain, and plans his attack. In seconds, he has defeated the four of them.

So… Smooth….

Irene, meanwhile, is meeting someone at an auction. She hands over the parcel, payment, apparently, for the work of a doctor. The doctor hands a note back to Irene, then proceeds to open the parcel.

Just before the bomb it contains is triggered… oh, didn’t I mention that? It’s packed full of explosives, designed to go off the moment it’s opened. But thankfully, Holmes arrives in time to stop the trigger from releasing. Irene, apparently, knew nothing of this. Holmes takes the note the Doctor gave her off her, then realises that there’s a secondary release mechanism for the bomb. Which has been triggered.

Oops.

Holmes uses his pipe to set fire to the Doctor’s coat, and clear the auction house. Irene walks off, and Holmes… I love this… he puts the bomb inside an Egyptian sarcophagus, containing the explosion.

Classy.

But while he’s busy stopping everyone from dying, the Doctor leaves too.

He doesn’t get far. He dies, poisoned by a dart, on the street outside the auction house.

Irene, unfortunately, is destined to meet a similar fate. She is meeting her employer at a fashionable restaurant. She takes a sip of tea. She has chosen to meet in public, hoping to guarantee herself a degree of safety.

Her employer gets one of his minions to tap a spoon against a glass. In a moment, everyone in the restaurant has left.

Oh, Irene.

Her employer pulls back the curtain that had separated them. He has shown her his face.

The face of Professor Moriarty.

He tells her that he knows that she has feelings for Holmes, and that Holmes has become… inconvenient.

He dismisses her. She stands up to leave, but is feeling unwell. After just a few steps, she collapses.

We cut to Sherlock at dinner, waiting for Irene. Waiting for over an hour, it seems.

She isn’t coming.

Can I just say… what a powerful way to introduce us to the main players in this story? So, to clarify, in the first ten minutes we’ve met John Watson, our narrator, Sherlock Holmes, our hero, Moriarty, out villain, Moran (we haven’t been told his name, but anyway), Moriarty’s henchman/assassin, and we have seen the death of Irene, which tells us that Moriarty is ruthless, efficient, and that he is already being troubled by Holmes’ interest in him.

This is a film that has to find a balance between comedy and tragedy, mystery and action. And so far, it’s doing a fantastic job!

But on to the other main characters. John Watson pays a visit to 221 Baker street. It’s, um… well, the upstairs flat is filled with exotic plants. Holmes is hiding somewhere among them, practising the art of camouflage.

There are a couple of references to the original stories in this scene. First, the bulldog that Watson beings with him. In the first Holmes story, he has a “Bull pup”, but he doesn’t get on with Holmes and so he rehomes him. There is also a statue of Holmes by the window, referencing the wax bust used to trick Colonel Moran in “The Empty House”.

Oh, and… there’s a goat. And a parrot. Not sure what they’re referencing, to be honest.

Or why they’re there.

But who cares?

Watson can’t spot him, so Holmes reveals himself. He’s basically painted himself onto the wall, using a skin-tight suit to hide in plain sight.

I reiterate my recent statement. It’s funny. Who cares?

This is clearly Sherlock in an over-active phase. He’s working on a dozen projects, from the sound of it, including extracting adrenaline from sheep, working on camouflage… and tracking down Moriarty.

Mrs Hudson turns up. She’s worried about Holmes being… less than considerate as a lodger. And, you know, living off tobacco.

Watson, has other things on his mind, though. Like, I don’t know, getting married. Tomorrow.

In fact, he’s come over because his best man (Holmes) was meant to be arranging his stag do.

Holmes…. Didn’t. He’s been busy making his “spider’s web”. A tangle of cotton threads linking international crimes. At the centre of it… Professor James Moriarty.

 Again, using a reference to the originals here, with Moriarty literally at the centre of a web.

Holmes tells Watson about the “heart attack” of the Doctor who Moriarty paid in explosives. And poison. Apparently he’s a medical pioneer of some kind.

Interesting. Anyway, Holmes drinks a shot of formaldehyde…

Yikes….

And Watson diagnoses him with mania.

Actually…. Normally I jump on the use of medical terms, especially psychiatric ones. But given his behaviour, and the time period… yeah, Sherlock Holmes in this state would probably be diagnosed as manic by a doctor of that period.

Possibly a doctor of this period too, to be honest.

Anyway, the dog has accidentally poisoned himself by eating castor beans. AKA ricin.

I’m not sure about dogs, but ricin is actually a fairly long-acting poison in humans when ingested, and is treated supportively. Not… with adrenaline. Which is what Holmes uses.

But it works. Yay for no cute animals dying in this film!

Boo for accurate poison treatment demonstration.

Medical accuracy in this film…. Well, we’ll get onto that later.

Importantly, Holmes gives Watson a spare syringe of adrenaline. For use later.

Holmes and Watson go off to the stag do, using a… car. “So overt it’s covert” apparently.

It fits in with the light-hearted nature of this film, if not with the character of the Holmes I know and love.

On the way, Holmes and Watson discuss the benefits of marriage. Well, Watson discusses the benefits. Holmes states that it’s an awful institution, and describes it as hellish.

This is… perhaps slightly exaggerated from Holmes’ position in the original stories, but this film is all about exaggeration. It’s certainly not out of character, anyway.

The pair arrive at the chosen destination, and meet… oh, Mycroft. This is one of the few adaptations which, I think, basically captures Mycroft Holmes. I mean, again, exaggerated, but…

Of course, the fact that he’s played by the FANTASTIC Stephen Fry helps.

They deduce at each other, their version of a friendly greeting, and Watson joins in. He guesses, correctly, that Mycroft has ulterior motives for attending the stag do, namely preventing war between “two nations, which shall remain nameless, but I can tell you they speak French and German”…

Oh, Stephen Fry. I don’t know who wrote that line, but it fits Fry so perfectly.

It is simply glorious.

He also namedrops Reichenbach, the location of a peace summit that he shall be forced to attend. If he can’t prevent things from escalating further, anyway.

Again, this is really setting the scene for the audience. There’s a lot of light-heartedness here, but the writers are telling us that this is the story of Reichenbach. So, as an audience, we should be expecting Holmes and Moriarty to take a tumble, at some point.

Stakes adequately raised, let’s get onto the stag party.

So… Holmes forgot to invite anyone. So Watson ends up spending the evening gambling happily. And getting drunk.

Oh yes, this version of Watson has a gambling addiction.

While Holmes is making a speech to… well, himself, he is also looking around for the guy he’s come to the bar to find.

Watson storms off to have some fun on his own, while Holmes goes off to meet a fortune teller. Madame Simza introduces herself, and begins with a little showmanship. Holmes interrupts, and, while pretending to read her fortune, actually warns her that someone is there to kill her. And that he is there to ask about her brother, who has been led astray.

He even knows the brother’s name. Probably because the letter he stole from Irene earlier was from Rene, the brother, and to Simza, the sister.

Sherlock passes the letter on. It’s a hand drawing of Rene’s face, along with a warning to Simza that she will never see it again. Rene, it seems, is looking to sacrifice himself for a cause.

Sherlock wants to know what cause, but Simza tries to kick him out.

Holmes refuses to go. Mainly because there’s a Russian gymnast hanging from the ceiling, there to kill Simza.

This introduces us to another Holmes style fight scene. This time, Holmes goes in with a plan, which he kindly narrates for us before beginning. I feel like this is the kind of thing you love or hate… but I am firmly in the “love” camp. Especially because it gives us a chance to see Holmes’ prefect plan, before it… goes wrong. Because it does. Well, sort of. Simza throws knives at the Cossack, distracting him, but he’s wearing a protective jacket, and a chase begins. I won’t deny that there’s a certain amount of… excessiveness in the display of gymnastics used here. I’m a gymnastics fan though, so I couldn’t care less.

Eventually, Holmes and the assassin end up in the street, and are encouraged to fight each other by the drunk crowd below. It’s… well, it is  tremendous fun, set to a lovely folky soundtrack. I love a chase scene set to violin. (Have I mentioned this films GLORIOUS soundtrack???)

Simza joins in the fight. A proficient knife user herself, she and Holmes manage to push the assassin out through a wall, into the Thames.

Then Watson turns up. During the pursuit, his gaming table was overturned, and he got into a fight of his own.

Holmes drives Watson to his wedding, helps him, to… um, remove the stains of his stag party, and freshen up before the ceremony.

After waking him up with a bagpipe duet.

Watson’s face at this is… one of the best things I’ve ever seen.

Between the two of them, they just about manage to look alive for the ceremony itself. From that point on, all goes smoothly.

Until Sebastian Moran shows up afterwards, to invite Holmes to a meeting.

Which, of course, Holmes attends.

Ah, my brain is tingling in anticipation. The meeting between giants. It has been done so many times, in so many ways.

And this time, it is brilliant. The Trout is playing on the gramophone. Moriarty is off on a tour around Europe. A respected professor of mathematics.

Sherlock comes with a request. He wants Watson to be removed from Moriarty’s plans entirely, given that his marriage marks an end to his relationship with Holmes.

Moriarty, basically, refuses. “There is always collateral damage”. He also tells Holmes that Irene is dead, and even goes so far as to gift him her blood-stained handkerchief.

 He warns Holmes that he will bring destruction down upon Holmes if he challenges him. Holmes says that, if he were assured of Moriarty’s destruction, he would happily accept his own demise as a consequence.

Every action in this scene, every word, is loaded with meaning. The tension is palpable. We’ve seen all that Holmes has been doing, everything he has already uncovered. This is their first meeting. It sets the tone for what till come later. Barely veiled threats, each knowing that the other is fully capable of delivering upon them.

The game begins.

The first play? To attack the happy newly-weds. They’re on a train, on the way to Brighton, when a group of soldiers launch an attack. Luckily, Holmes has snuck on board to help them defend themselves.

The first assassination attempt is clumsy. A waiter comes in with a bottle of champagne, the lights go out, and he pulls a knife.

Watson, obviously, is quick to act. A pleasant surprise, Mrs Watson is too. He disarms the man, she holds a gun to his head, and orders her husband to throw him out of the train.

It’s nice to see the female characters in this story already being so epic, strong and independent, honestly. Makes a nice change from….

Um…

Some other Holmes adaptations.

One of the soldiers comes down the corridor to launch the second attempt, but he’s intercepted by Holmes. They retreat into their compartment.

Watson holds off the guards, while Holmes… throws Mrs Watson out of the train.

Luckily, they’re over a river. Well, I say luck, it was carefully timed, apparently. Mycroft is in a boat down below, ready to pick up Mary and carry her away to safety.

Watson is… less than appreciative of this. I mean, his best friend just threw his wife off a train. They scrap among themselves for a moment, then the soldiers arrive. Luckily, Holmes had rigged a couple of traps, including a rigged bullet. Next, Holmes attaches a grenade to the compartment door, and the pair climb out, travelling along the outside of the train to a safer area. Part of the train blows up, Remarkably, no-one… you know, stops the train. Not even when, a few moments later, the soldiers rig up a machine gun. A literal machine gun.

Luckily for Holmes and Watson… the soldiers accidentally let off a grenade next to a bag of grenades. The already partly blown up train… blows up completely. And still doesn’t stop.

Calm having descended, Holmes tells Watson that his wedding was badly timed, and they must now work together to prevent war and ensure the safety of Mrs Watson and himself.

Watson agrees to help out.

Holmes’ first aim is to find Simza, starting in Paris.

Oh, I should probably point out that the ferry they take is gorgeous. Steam powered. Beautiful thing.

Holmes has brought Irene’s handkerchief with him, and he releases it over the side in a thoughtful, heartfelt moment. It blows away, and is lost at sea.

Next, to Moriarty’s tour. He’s busy signing books when Moran interrupts him, bringing him opera tickets. Moran, though, won’t be going. The assassin has other work to do.

Holmes and Watson arrive at the camp where they hope to find Simza. Their greeting is… friendly. They take all their possessions, and search through them. Watson…. Nearly starts a fight. But Simza shows up, and agrees to talk to them before things can worsen.

They tell Simza that her brother is involved with Moriarty. She hasn’t seen Rene for over a year, and doesn’t know where he is, but he’s sent several drawings. Holmes is able to deduce that Rene is writing from a wine cellar.

Simza fills in the pieces, Rene is with a anarchist group that works out of a wine cellar in Paris. The same cellar that houses the bomb maker that made the bomb that nearly killed the Doctor in the beginning.

Pieces fall into place.

Holmes and Watson spend the evening dancing, resting before going to find Rene in the morning.

Mrs Watson, meanwhile, is staying in a… well, a castle with Mycroft. They meet at breakfast, and… well… Mycroft is naked. Completely naked.

No-one other than Stephen Fry could pull this off.

Mrs Watson handles it marvellously.

I don’t think we ever know why…

Holmes and Watson have sent Mrs Watson a loving telegraph. Mycroft is also starting to form a friendly attachment to Mary, even going so far as to say that he can see why people might enjoy the company of women.

Wow. Warm.

But also, hilarious.

Back in Paris, Holmes and Watson sneak into the wine cellar. They are met by the bomb maker…

Who promptly kills himself. Moriarty’s orders. Moriarty has his family.

Rene was also given order by Moriarty. He isn’t there, though. He’s moved on.

After the gun is shot, many people begin to run down, to try and catch Holmes, Watson and Simza, who they would suppose to be the bomber’s killers. Watson holds them off, while Holmes discovers a secret exit, and uses it to lead everyone to safety.

Along the way, they also discover a secret printing press. They find a clue that leads them to the opera, and follow it.

Cue more fantastic music.

They creep in, find their way backstage, and search for the bomb.

But they have been misled. As they arrive, Moran leaves, heading for the real target.

The opera is a trap. A red herring, laid for them to find.

Holmes realises the mistake too late. He cannot reach the actual target, a treaty signing in a nearby hotel, before the bomb goes off.

At the scene, Holmes realises that there is more going on than meets the eye. A bomb, yes, but also a bullet. An explosion to hide an assassination.

They go to the sniping post, and from the information gathered there deduce the identity of Moriarty’s henchman. A former soldier. Sebastian Moran.

The next morning, the three discuss their next step. They identify a weapons manufacturer, the owner of which was murdered, and who had recently sold part of his company to..

Guess who?

Prof. Moriarty.

Who is travelling to the weapons factory. They will follow… though there are a few difficulties there. Crossing borders between France and Germany, just after a political bombing…

They will cross on horseback. It’s just… Holmes doesn’t like horses. What ensues is a comedic scene. Holmes refuses to ride a horse, so he gets… a tiny pony.

Look, I know it’s silly. But it’s funny.

They get across the border, and to the weapons factory. Holmes gets Watson to send a message to Mycroft, and he himself goes and snoops around. He discovers… well, what you might expect to find in a weapon factory. Lots of weapons.

And something you might not expect to find. A map of Europe, marked up in preparation for war. It also shows some of Moriarty’s latest business investments. The plan becomes clearer.

Before he can find out much more, however, Holmes is captured. Moran takes delight in explaining some of the newly designed weapons to him, then two more of Moriarty’s accomplices drug him and take him to “the surgery”. To see “The doctor”.

I mean, I don’t think any anaesthetic gas works that quickly… but anyway.

He is woken by… sniffing a glass of schnapps?

Again. Not sure that’s how it works.

Moriarty questions Holmes, asking who he got Watson to send a telegram to. Holmes, obviously, refuses to answer.

Instead, he congratulates Moriarty on the genius it took to create his plan. Buy up all the weapon manufacturers, the medicine makers, then start a war to fuel demand.

Genius.

But very, very evil genius.

Watson, meanwhile, is sneaking his way around the factory, trying to find Holmes. He’s spotted. Moran has him in his sights.

Holmes is still in a worse position, though. Because Moriarty is a fan of Schubert.

The Trout, to be precise. His henchman digs a giant fishhook through Holmes’ shoulder, and drags him up to dangle in the air.

For class, he then puts on the music. He sings along, and broadcasts the resulting sound, along with Holmes’ screaming, through the factory, for Watson to hear.

Watson, meanwhile, is hiding from Moran. It takes him a moment, but he realises that he’s hiding.. beside a massive gun.

The music finishes. Holmes is dropped to the floor. Moriarty twists the hook, Holmes admits that the message was to Mycroft.

John gets the giant gun working, and Moran realises that he’s made a mistake.

So does Moriarty.

John fires the gun, collapsing a watchtower onto the surgery, interrupting… well, everything. He runs up and drags Holmes out of the wreckage.

Holding his friend up, he leads Holmes out of the factory. They arm themselves along the way, Watson improvises a sling for Holmes.

Meanwhile Moran is busy finding Moriarty. Once he knows his master is alive, he sets off after Holmes and Watson, who shoot their way out, joining up with Simza and co along the way.

All the unnamed characters are killed off  as they run through the factory, manage to get into the surrounding forest, and another chase ensues.

The problem is, the baddies have a… fairly big advantage.

It’s called “being in a factory that makes gigantic weapons”.

So, while under heavy, HEAVY fire, the heroes make their escape on foot, aiming for a train which, hopefully, they will be able to intercept.

Let’s be honest, the odds are slightly against them here. Especially given that Holmes is already suffering from quite serious blood loss.

Shards of wood fly as the trees are torn up, creating a storm of shrapnel. Unnamed character after unnamed character falls.

Then, the big gun, “Little Hansel”, is unveiled. The force of the explosion as the shell goes up sends everyone to the floor, giving the foot soldiers a chance to catch up. The heroes have to pause to fight them off.

Watson manages to get a shot in at Moran, and he is delayed enough to allow the bulk of the party to clamber onto the train. One last unnamed character dies, a victim of Moran’s final bullet.

And then… calm. The survivors huddle together.

After the dust settles, Watson sets to work trying to sew up Holmes’ wounds. As Simza cradles him in her arms, she realises that he’s stopped breathing.

Watson begins treatment for shock. Holmes has lost too much blood. He gets another unnamed character to lift his legs, helping blood get back to Holmes’ heart and brain. And he… begins… chest compressions?

When a couple of those don’t work, he goes for the famed precordial thump… by which I mean that he punches Holmes’ chest.

This also… doesn’t work.

Do you want to know why?

Well, Holmes is, presumably, running out of blood. He is going into hypovolaemic shock, a result of his catastrophic injuries. His heart, in short, is not the problem. In order to get his heart beating properly again, Watson needs to get fluids into Holmes, preferably more blood, and stop him from losing the fluid he still has.

I mean, I’m not saying that that’s an easy thing to accomplish, with no medical equipment in the back of a train, but still…

OK, but imagine that CPR was a way to cure Holmes here. Watson is still doing… possibly the worst CPR I have ever seen on film. Firstly, his hand positioning is wrong. He is pushing down over to one side, on the left side of Holmes’ chest. In order to do CPR properly, you need to push on the sternum, in the centre of the chest. He’s also a bit too high up, by my reckoning.

Secondly, the speed. Doing two compressions, they looking at Holmes for a moment to see if it “worked”… not really going to do much. You need to do constant chest compressions, at least a hundred in a minute, to actually get some blood flowing.

Not that Holmes has any blood left to flow, so really it’s not going to do much except perhaps prolong his life for a few more moments.

I mean, if you had the ability to use that time to, say, pump him full of fluids, it might be useful. In this situation though?

Nope. If Holmes stops breathing, he’s basically dead.

Anyway, Watson continues slamming his fist into his friend’s chest, and starts shouting at Sherlock to wake up.

Simza pulls him off, John takes a moment… and remembers his wedding gift. Adrenaline.

Oh good. Watson stabs it (pretty violently) into Holmes’ chest. Hopefully he hits the heart, rather than piercing the lungs and giving Holmes a pneumothorax on top of everything else.

There’s a moments pause. Then Holmes wakes up, scrambled to his feet, and runs into the side of the carriage.

I… just…..

That’s not…

That’s not how any of this works.

That’s definitely not how adrenaline works.

The science behind this scene is……….

…….

………….

I mean, I’m not sure there is any?

It’s so wrong, so inaccurate, I don’t even know where to start unpacking it.

 This is… I would love to give this film a free pass. Because it’s fun. Because it’s dramatic.

But I just…

Look, if you’re portraying CPR in films, I just think you should do it properly. And maybe also consider showing that, actually, CPR isn’t a cure-all. Its success rates are really low. Used in a situation like this, in isolation, or even with the adrenaline… I just don’t think it’s realistic to show it working. At all.

The only excuse that I think this film can use is that Watson is using Victorian medicine here. Their knowledge of CPR and how it works… probably not as highly developed as ours is nowadays. But still.

So, you know, I have to dock a few marks here. But I feel guilty doing it. It’s just a principle thing. I think that the way CPR is shown in media needs to change, in order for public perceptions of CPR to change. It isn’t, and shouldn’t be thought of as, a quick fix.

But back to the film. Holmes sits down, and Watson pulls a large splinter of wood out of his ankle.

OK, one final medical point. If Holmes isn’t going to die of hypovolaemic shock now, he should probably die of sepsis within a few days.

Holmes decides to make one last stop off on their European tour. Switzerland.

Good news, Mrs Watson and Mycroft are there, waiting for them at Reichenbach.

Bad news, despite the threat of a political assassination, Mycroft won’t cancel the peace summit. Sending everyone home would, apparently, guarantee a war.

Sherlock joins the conversation by stealing Mycroft’s “personal supply of oxygen”.

I’m sure that won’t be significant later.

He has, though, recognised the significance of Rene. He is to be the assassin.

So, all they have to do is find him before he kills anyone.

Mycroft sneaks them into the evening dance, and runs them through a who’s who of potential victims. Sherlock dances around the room, his eyes flickering over every possible killer, every possible target.

Then, he turns to John. He asks him about the Doctor who was killed by Moran in the beginning. An expert. He wants to know if he would be capable of… advanced plastic surgery.

Short answer?

No.

Long answer?

Actually, the history of plastic surgery is long and complicated. In fact, the first and second world wars played a massive part in advancing it, due to the sudden increase in numbers of people with severe soft tissue injuries.

But at this point, the ability to change someone’s appearance enough that they would be unrecognisable to their own family, without leaving more than the smallest of scars… it sounds fantastical.

Especially as, apparently, it was taken a step further. Apparently, the surgeon created “twins”, made one face into a perfect copy of another. This is… well, honestly, I’m not sure that modern medicine could accomplish that perfectly.

And, bearing in mind that this is in a time with fairly limited options for anaesthetic, and basically no useful antibiotics… a surgery like that would be incredibly, incredibly painful, and risky beyond belief.

So this is probably a bit of fantasy.

Anyway, having told Watson what to look for, Holmes leaves the dance floor. He heads to the balcony at the top of the fall, and sends a note to Moriarty to join him.

And so, the two meet again. They sit down… for a game of chess. Moriarty lovingly wraps a cloak around Holmes’ shoulders.

The two geniuses, both of their plans laid out in the open, sit down to wait and see which of them will prove victorious.

Watson and Simza set to work. They narrow down the pool of options. One after another.

They spot one. A man who, it seems, is deliberately acting as if he is left handed instead of right. A man who, when startled doesn’t look around, in case he gives himself away. They have their man.

Simza approaches Rene. He tries to shoot, Watson jumps on him. He is restrained, and led away.

Outside, Holmes and Moriarty hear the commotion. They surmise that Moriarty’s plan has failed.

But he has a back-up. Moran. He fires a poisoned dart at Rene, silencing him. Preventing his identity from being revealed.

Oh, one more medical moment. Apparently, the dart is tipped with curare.

Curare is a naturally occurring substance, a paralytic agent. Drugs in the same family are still used to paralyse patients having surgery today. Interesting fact about curare, it kills by… well, it stops you from breathing. But eventually, it will wear off. So if you can keep someone breathing, if you can keep air moving into their lungs, then they can survive.

Unfortunately, Watson doesn’t know this. Or the writers of the film don’t know this. Because, apparently, there’s nothing to be done.

Anyway. Back to chess. Moriarty is still confident, despite his game, seemingly, having failed. He falls back on innate, human desire for conflict. He believes that, no matter what, there will be a war.

And he will sit and wait for the profit to roll in.

The terrible, terrible thing, is that he’s right. Well, about the imminent war, anyway. Not about the human condition. Not in saying that humanity will always seek conflict.

Well, I don’t believe so, anyway.

Moriarty stands to leave. Sherlock continues to call out chess moves. The game is still going, it seems. He has another hand to play.

Moriarty replies with a move of his own.

Sherlock noticed that Moriarty carries a notebook with him. A record of his businesses.

Holmes explains how he made several attempts to steal it, and eventually managed to replace it with a duplicate when Moriarty was torturing him.

He also explains how he found the code. A book, left discarded in Moriarty’s office.

Moriarty takes out his little red book, while Sherlock reveals that Mary Watson, and Inspector Lestrade currently hold the original. And are busy using it to dismantle Moriarty’s empire.

Moriarty flicks through the book. A series of pictures. A fish, pulling a fisherman out of a boat.

“be careful what you fish for.”

Sherlock recites one last chess move. Checkmate.

Moriarty and Holmes prepare for one, last fight. This one, physical.

Each of them plan out the fight. They have a silent conversation.

Both come to one conclusion. An injured Sherlock Holmes cannot win. An injured Sherlock Holmes cannot survive.

So he comes up with another way. He blows sparks from his pipe into Moriarty’s face. He catches him by surprise, wraps his arms around him…

The balcony door opens. Watson walks through. Their eyes meet.

Holmes rolls backwards over the balcony, pulling Professor Moriarty with him.

Watson narrates the ending. The bodies could not be found. A memorial is held for Holmes, though there is no body to bury.

Watson finishes with a touching tribute, to the “best and wisest man that I have ever known”.

As he is finishing, Mary comes to deliver a parcel. They’re about to go and spend their honeymoon in Brighton. Finally.

As they discuss it, Watson opens the parcel. Inside, there is… Mycroft’s personal supply of oxygen.

A small oxygen tank.

Watson goes to try and find out who delivered the parcel. After he leaves the room, the focus changes to… the chair.

Where Holmes is sitting, wearing the same kind of camouflage that he’s used earlier.

He walks over to the typewriter, where Watson has just typed “The End”, and adds a single question mark.

And so we finish.

This was… a joy. Honestly, truly. Yes, there are times where this is silly. Of course there are. There are times where ethe science makes no sense.

But there is also a lot of pure, abject joy in this film. And for that, I will watch it over and over again.

Is it a perfect Sherlock Holmes adaptation?

Weeel… it’s a perfect Sherlock Holmes as an action comedy adaptation. So... yes and no. the characters are surprisingly close to the originals. The action is great. The cinematography, the acting, the overall presentation… Well, I like it. I’m sure it would rub some people up the wrong way, though. There’s a lot of slow-mo here.

I also think they tackle a really, really big subject. What we’re talking about here is, after all, the prelude to the first world war. It’s a dark topic, and they really don’t shy away from much.

All in all… I love this film. Despite the medical inaccuracies. Which there are a lot of.

And, honestly, I highly recommend giving this one a watch.

It is, truly, a modern Holmes adaptation that works.