You may try to fight the full-frontal charisma assault that Robert Downey Jr.—an actor seemingly comprised of many knowing winks molded into graceful human form—unleashes in this second steroidal, revisionist take on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s supersleuth. The chances of you successfully resisting his magnificently manic energy and loose-cannonball charm, of course, are equal to that of the average person outwitting the deductive detective himself; we wish you the best of luck. As he returns to play Guy Ritchie’s recast version of Sherlock Holmes as the Victorian James Bond, the star is thankfully aided in this new installment by a sturdier, chewier plotline and the welcome introduction of Jared Harris as archnemesis Professor Moriarty. (The three tête-à-tête scenes between the two actors are brilliantly calibrated cerebral brawls.) But for all the no-longer-subtextual homoeroticism, anarchic terrorists, stereotypical gypsies, early-industrial weaponry, steampunk re-creations of East London’s shit-strewn streets and legions of awesome vintage mustaches, it basically boils down to the pleasure of watching Downey almost singlehandedly inject life and lightness into a lumbering blockbuster.

His sinewy shoulders can hold up only so much, however, when missteps lurk behind every fake Baker Street corner. How Ritchie can expertly construct such set pieces as a train-bound assault, then thoroughly ruin every other action sequence with his signature self-indulgent slo-mo fetish and gratuitously stuttery editing, is an unsolvable mystery. Worse, his introduction of Noomi "The original Lisbeth Salander" Rapace as a knife-throwing badass sets her heroine up as an equal to Holmes—so why reduce the woman with the razor-blade cheekbones to the equivalent of a vestigial tail for the rest of the film? (The less said about Holmes’s other sidekick, played by photogenic black hole Jude Law, the better.) Shadows still functions as a study in superior sequel-itude, building a fine showcase for a reimagined character and the compelling, twitchy dynamo playing him. Should Ritchie ever learn to be elementary instead of epileptically overwrought, he may one day do proper justice to both.

David Fear

From Time Out New York

Dir: Guy Ritchie, 117 mins, opens Wed 14.