Sherlock Holmes 2

A-

Holmes doesn't play the violin in this second romp through Victorian London settings, where the movie's salvation is the depiction of Moriarty.

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If Alvin and the Chipmunks can have a Squeakquel, can Sherlock Holmes be allowed a "shequel"? Such an atrocious wordplay may have prompted some of the plotting for A Game of Shadows, credited to (Mr and Mrs) Kieran and Michele Mulroney. Their only previous joint credits are as writers and directors of a 2009 bomb, Paper Man, a gossamer-weight comedy in which Jeff Daniels almost died and Emma Stone glistened weakly.

Whatever, somebody at Silver Pictures decreed (and wasn't second-guessed by director Guy Richie, Village Roadshow or Warner Bros), they can carry on the new Holmes tradition. Presumably, for a cheaper fee than the previous writers.

Their Holmes (Robert Downey) had a brother, Mycroft (Stephen Fry), who called him "Sherley", and eyes were raised during that initial reboot of the Holmes franchise by homoerotic overtones in the dialogue and body language of Holmes and his trusted associate, Dr Watson (Jude Law).

This time, the new creative team decided, Holmes would don drag and lipstick in order to protect the honeymooning doctor and his wife (Kelly Reilly) from the evil plotting of Professor Moriarty (Jared Harris). Later, Mycroft/Fry had to parade his semi-frontal nudity and outspoken rejection of female companionship, while double entendres flapped feebly, more explicably for UK audiences which know that Fry has long been a very out personality in real gay society.

However, just to be sure that global audiences don't get too many queer ideas about the new version of a 19th-century sleuth who's a cocaine-addicted chemicals-imbibing psychotic character, Holmes's original female interest, Irene Adler (Rachel McAdams) is brought back ... so that she can be killed off (through an injection of instantly fatal TB) by the dastardly professor and his sharpshooting English hitman (Paul Anderson as a credibly devoted lieutenant).

Holmes doesn't play the violin in this second romp through Victorian London settings, but the non-stop musical soundtrack (Hans Zimmer) includes cascading Celtic string bands as well as almost every known version of mood-heightening ear-challenging orchestral outburst. Thus Holmes has more screen time to indulge in 19th-century forensic science, ride a donkey, shoot and punch various evil henchmen, lurk in comical wigs and bad disguises, and meet a gipsy fortune-teller (Noomi Rapace) whose face-lifted brother will present an explosive conclusion.

Although the efforts at wit and whimsy are not quite as condescending and cringe-worthy as those foisted on Downey in his second Iron Man outing, they are as strained as Law's face is much of the time. The movie's salvation is the character and depiction of Moriarty. Jared Harris, the 50-year-old son of Richard Harris and Elizabeth Rees, finally has a lead movie role that suits his talent and looks, augmenting the TV reputation he's gained since 2009 in Mad Men.

He and Downey swap tricks of their trades, one-upmanship IQ ploys, arch glances and speedy chess moves, with convincing brio, and Richie rightly lingers on their clear rapport as actors with faces worth watching. The director is less forgiveable for his over-frequent slow/stop-motion sequences anticipating or explaining a fast-action setpiece of calculated fighting finesse.

At the end of the movie, however, when Holmes hasn't died in the Swiss waterfall and Moriarty may have, no one should over-analyse such a broth of cinematic fun and games. It's a beguiling entertainment, and I do hope Moriarty returns. It's a great change to see an abnormally-clever villain who's middle-aged, looks normal, and is a worthy match for a foolish hero like the new Holmes.

We need to talk about Kevin

A-

Swinton conveys states of mind brilliantly, as do the faces of the playing Kevin as a pre-teen manipulative little monster and spiteful narcissistic 15-year-old planner of a massacre.

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Tilda Swinton was plucked from the ranks of little-known and gifted indie British actresses, by fellow-Scot Danny Boyle, and put on The Beach with Leonardo DiCaprio in 2000. It took a few years for the oddly beautiful and charismatic talent to became a mainstream top-billed star in the UK and then the USA; her latest award-winning role (2011) also arrived courtesy of another Scot: director Lynne Ramsay.

We Need to Talk About Kevin is based on the Orange Prize-winning novel of the same name by Lionel Shriver (a London-resident American woman who adopted a male name, as many successful female writers have done). Probably influenced by the 1999 Columbine High School massacre, it examines the development of a psychopathic child. His character is reviewed through the recollections by his mother following his murder spree.

The screenplay by Ramsay and her partner Rory Kinnear took several years to get into production (by BBC Films and the UK Film Council, with extra funds from Steven Soderbergh and other movie angels. Ramsay's previous movie was Morvern Callar (2002), which followed her breakthrough debut feature Ratcatcher (1999). She remains a distinctive indie director, utilising hand-held cinematography, non-linear narrative and assertive editing effects to engage her audience's attention. Excessively so in her over-usage of symbolic red (as blood, in a festival of tomatoes, highlighted in jam, lights, lampshades, dresses and more) to reflect the mental states of the anguished mother and amoral child.

Swinton conveys states of mind brilliantly, much of the time without dialogue. Her eyes, facial lines, footsteps and glances mesmerise. So do the faces of the two young actors playing Kevin as a pre-teen manipulative little monster who refuses to communicate or get toilet-trained, and then as a spiteful narcissistic 15-year-old planner of a massacre. One day, near his 16th birthday, he takes his longbow to school and slaughters fellow students, having already shot down his father and young sister.

He'd previously blinded her in one eye, and the story stretches credulity with its failure to suggest that no person other than the mother was ever worried about the boy's personality (which supposedly only flowered when his mother reads him a story about Robin Hood's archery skills). Almost risibly too, the father (John C. Reilly playing yet another spineless non-character) always makes excuses for a child whose malicious cunning he doesn't see or sense.

Barely credible too is the decision of the mother (a published travel book author) to stay in the overly hostile and vengeful local community, and become a travel agency assistant, visiting her son's prison each week only to sit silently and avoid looking at him. At the movie's end, reached slowly via an increasingly tense sequence of flashbacks, the son - facing a "new school" in adult prison - shows nerves and expresses self-doubt for the first time.

The mother embraces him, coolly, and her audience will be no wiser whether she's proof that evil is bred in genes and/or nurtured by misguided parents. All that matters in the end is Swinton's spell-binding performance, well worth a 2012 Oscar nomination [which it didn't get].

Warrior

B

Tired variant on old theme: the modern blood sport of MMA (Mixed Martial Arts) in a fighting family saga.

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Anyone who saw The Fighter, or others example of the genre, might guess that Warrior features two poor fighting sons (Brit Tom Bronson Hardy and Aussie Joel Animal Kingdom Edgerton) of a reformed alcoholic fighting trainer (Nick Nolte with a rasp) living in a stereotypically ugly macho US city (Pittsburgh). If writer-director Gavin (Pride and Glory) O'Connor wrote his plot before The Fighter appeared, he must feel unlucky.

All three male leads have unresolved family issues, so we know they'll all get punch-drunk, drunk, and be finally punched into states of smiling forgiveness and understanding. There'll be one loyal wife hanging around, and a lot of hand-held cameras bobbing and weaving around scenes of bare-chested men.

It takes more than two hours to reach the non-surprising conclusion that the brothers will come to blows in the final of a super-MMA championship. Despite good acting by the leads, it's hard to care about their drives and dramas when their situations and dialogue are tiringly cliched and sentimental. MMA fans will like the movie.