Busy Frickin' Month

I'm moving house today. I'm considering starting my own business next week. I've just aged. I'm still trying to recover from the lack of sleep I endured over Panto season. I still despise Christmas. I'm single once again.

Kinda feels like I escaped from the frying pan of December (what with the constant working and little sleeping, everything else that I've moaned about before) and have stumbled and fallen into the open flame of January.

It just feels like all the pressures and strains that I wanted rid of at the end of last month haven't let me go, they just want to keep biting at me, keep me stressed and keep me sleepless. I'm not sure what I'm doing with myself.

I think I'm muddling along, but something in the back of my mind keeps telling me that I'm missing something, that I've forgotten something important but I just can't remember what it is. I want to not feel like this, but I can't help it.

Roll on sodding February.

SHERLOCK HOLMES:
A GAME OF SHADOWS.

If there's a poll out there for what stereotypical words can be tagged onto a movie title, I bet you 'Shadows' is in the top 5. Anyway, this was a slightly inferior follow-up to a highly entertaining first installment. If the first one was an 8 out of 10, this was a 7. Firstly, the relationship between Holmes and Watson that made the first film feel so fresh was lacking in this one, it felt forced and ingenuine, which was a great pity considering how much it made the first film.

Secondly, the action sequences were way over the top. They were overblown and dynamic in the first one, but in this they needed a serious turning down. If they'd just reigned themselves in a little bit more, then we'd have a decent film on our hands, but the fights were often jarring and difficult to follow. Thirdly, was Noomi Rapace actually necessary? The whole brother-plastic-surgery plot was sheer rubbish, did they actually need that final element just to justify her presence?

That being said, this film does do some things very well, namely it's two villains.

Paul Anderson is a little known TV Actor who said about nine words in this film, but he had a commanding presence as Colonel Sebastian Moran (I was impressed that the film even contained the character, to be honest) and served as an excellent opposite to Watson. The main hat goes off to, however, Jared Harris as Professor James Moriarty. I mean seriously, how long have I had to wait for someone like this to play the role, eh? Too long have I had to put up with mediocre portrayals of this man.

But no longer, Jared Harris was, and let me say this as clearly as possible:

AWE
SOME

as Moriarty. He suited the part down to a T and he played with the right amount of gusto.

This wasn't a perfect movie and it could have been better considering the first one that it didn't quite live up to, the whole story didn't really come together until the third act and the lead characters were off, but it's villians make up for it and the simplicity of Moriarty's scheme is, quite frankly, commending its audience for their patience and understanding. I'd still recommend it, but only if you were a fan of the previous one (which, incidently, you don't have to have seen to view this one).

Next time: SHERLOCK (the BBC version).