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Ritchie stages plenty of gunfights and beatdowns to satisfy action fans, pausing to consider the beauty of violence before resuming speed and piling on more.

A sequel confident in what it's about - bigger, better, funnier, without stretching the joke.

A Game of Shadows is a stronger, better realized movie that builds upon the strengths of the original and jettisons some of the weaknesses.

While director Guy Ritchie's excesses and modern concessions -- among them a lot of explosions -- remain intact, the parts of this second "Sherlock Holmes" are considerably more rewarding.

After quite a few tedious detours and distractions, when the film finally gets down to the business of a climax at a gathering of elite European diplomats in a precariously perched Swiss mountain castle, it becomes not half-bad.

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.

Ultimately, the best relationship in the movie remains that of Holmes and Watson, which is to say, Downey and Law. Their pairing is what makes the movie; the explosions and bells and whistles Ritchie employs are mere distractions.

Lackluster screenwriting and the absence of actorly communion are breezed past with monotonous banter, as is the fleetingly visible plot.

Director Guy Ritchie is like a Heismann-winning football player cast in a ballet stage-perfectly talented, but wrong for the circumstance.

Wither the rollicking verve and whip-crack humor in Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows?