The Weekly Planet - Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows - Caravan Of Garbage

Episode Date: March 5, 2026

Sherlock Holmes is back and this time it's A Game of Shadows! In this highly anticipated 2011 sequel we seen Robert Downey Jr's and Jude Law return as both Holmes and Watson to take on the criminal mastermind Professor James Moriarty who has a dastardly plan to do a big World War I but early. There's drinking, dancing, explosions, mind chess, mind fights, falling off things and more! Thanks for watching our Caravan of Garbage reviewSUBSCRIBE HERE ►► http://goo.gl/pQ39jNHelp support the show and get early episodes ► https://bigsandwich.co/Patreon ► https://patreon.com/mrsundaymoviesJames' Twitter ► http://twitter.com/mrsundaymoviesMaso's Twitter ► http://twitter.com/wikipediabrownPatreon ► https://patreon.com/mrsundaymoviesT-Shirts/Merch ► https://www.teepublic.com/stores/mr-sunday-movies The Weekly Planet iTunes ► https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-weekly-planet/id718158767?mt=2&ign-mpt=uo%3D4 The Weekly Planet Direct Download ► https://play.acast.com/s/theweeklyplanetAmazon Affiliate Link ► https://amzn.to/2nc12P4 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome back everybody to another episode of Caravanna Garbage where we're talking the second Guy Ritchie Sherlock Holmes movie. Because there's a new Sherlock Holmes thing apparently. Yep. There always is. There is always is. And it's always, is it always the state of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle? They always getting in there with the lawyers.

Oh, okay. Give us a bit of this. Are they allowed to do that at this point? Oh, because it's mostly public domain. Yeah, yeah. I think the last time I checked, they're not allowed to do it in the early Sherlock Holmes stories, but they are after he came back.

Oh, okay. Sir Arthur Cohn & Doyle killed off, Sherlock Holmes. Spoiler alert, spoiler alert. Leave a like for a dead man. And then he brought him back and he was a little, the character was a little bit, like he was a little bit warmer and kind of more genial. So like, apparently the lawyers look at this and they go, is he like a cold fish of a man?

Free to use in the new adaptation. But if he's nice, we got you. We got you, you got to pay. Okay, got you. But maybe that's not true anymore. Maybe it's all free now. Yeah, exactly. Which one was the Johnny Lee Miller version?

Oh, elementary. I quite like elementary. That's what he said. Elementary. Elementary Lucy Lou is what he said. He was working with the actor Lucy Lou in that show, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Cool, that's good.

What a team. Sherlock Holmes and Lucy Lou? I mean, she'd have those Hollywood connections, wouldn't she? She certainly would. She'd be like... She'd certainly would. She'd be like, do you want to make Drew Barrymore? Do you want to hear about the time I punched Bill Murray?

Nice. This is all good stuff. Anyways, this movie came out in 2011. It's called a Game of Shat, Shadows because... It's called Sherlock Holmes, colon, a Game of Shadows. It's true, it is. At first glance, I'm like, oh, this is like the very definition of a sequel that's like more of the same.

Bigger and more. Yeah, big nonsense. There's a guy exploding and covered in fire. Sherlock has slightly longer hair, I guess. But I think after they get out of the city, it becomes like a different thing. See, I was thinking about this on the way over here that sometimes we don't give these movies kind of a fair shake. Because we watch them back to back. Or are we more incisive than ever?

Are we better than the reviewers at the time? Because when you watch the first one, you're like, this was fun, and then several years later you watch the new one, and it's kind of more of the same but bigger. But when you watch them back to back, you're like, no, this is the same. This sucks. This sucks is stupid.

Sherlock Holmes is stupid. His friend's stupid. His friend's wife's stupid. Oh, come on, man. The new friend who's a romantic, she's stupid. Nahumir Abase, she's stupid. Damn. Jared Harris is stupid.

God, damn. And he's so sad. Cheer up, mate. And it may be it'll never happen. You know those people? Yeah. Maybe it'll never happen. Well, it did happen.

Whatever happened to him. It's already happened. It's already happened. This is what happens when you have the keen, analytical mind of a Sherlock Holmes, but you have no charisma or joie de vivre. Yeah, I gotcha. You're the in-cell version of Sherlock Holmes, you know what I mean? Which is also sometimes it's just Sherlock Holmes.

Sometimes it's just Sherlock Holmes. Sometimes it's just Sherlock Holmes. version. That's exactly right. Who's free, by the way. He's free, that's right. You can use that. In sell Sherlock Holmes.

There you go. There's a free idea. Yeah. Sherlock, no bones? There's a fun, right? A lot. And yeah, you know, pretty solid. I like Jared Harris.

He's turned his charisma completely off. Yeah. In this movie, I think that's fun. Absolutely. His dad was. Dumbledore until he died. This is also, as you mentioned, it's loosely based on the final problem, which was to be the final Sherlock story,

where he sacrifices himself in order to something, something, etc. He, of course, did bring him back because people are like, we like those books, give us a book. More books. We don't like your other stuff. It sucks. Whatever that is. Lack of Sherlock Holmes sucks. Lack of his friend sucks.

Lack of his friend's wife sucks. We hate this. We want him back. So Warner Brothers' fast. this sequel. So Robert Danny Jr. was forced to drop out out of Cowboys and Aliens,

which is of course directed by John Favreau. Sounds like he dodged an old-time in Bullitt there. Big time, yeah. Guy Ritchie also dropped out of directing Lobo to do this. Lobo? The lobo we're thinking of? They've been trying to do Lobo for years.

And now we're getting some Lobo sort of. Wait, was Guy Ritchie going to be Lobo? Yeah, he was going to be Lobo. Or was it Lobot? He could be both? I wish there was a mash-up t-shirt of that that I could look at that and go, oh, yeah.

Still don't know those, are they? Anyways, where is Sherlock now? I'll tell you what, Mason, he's on the hunt. He's on the hunt for Moriarty. Yes. He's in a game of wits, but maybe he's going mad. Maybe this is all in his mind. It's not.

It's very clearly happening to him. He's stopping an international conspiracy. There's very little of people going, no, Holmes, you're crazy. This isn't happening. Yeah. Pretty much everybody's like, no, I get it. Yeah. It makes sense.

This is true, but like, it seems complicated. We don't want to... Yeah, something about an ambassador or whatever? Yeah. And then something blows up, you shoot a guy while things are getting blown up? I don't... Holmes, you're mad. You're mad, Holmes.

And also, you drink embalming fluid, and I looked into it, and apparently it had a lot of arsenic in it in the era. Yeah, that makes sense, yeah. You know, make of that what you will. Robert Daddy Jr., also at this point, 2011, he's very bold with his ethnic portrayals. I'll say that, Mason. Oh, absolutely.

And you know what? He's earned it. He does some good work. Absolutely. And I also... Some of the most accurate portrayals. More accurate than some people who are of that actual race, I think. Wow.

I'll say it. Wow. I'll say it. Just let me say something. If the general consensus is that people don't like that, that I agree with them. I'm taking a firm stand. These are jokes, everyone, that I believe in.

So he... Because at this point, he was already... He was Tropic Thunder and other things and whatever. So, yeah, he loves nonsense, this version of Sherlock also. This time it's urban camouflage, which I enjoy. Like, last time it was all, like, different costumes. And sure, he's doing some of that, but sometimes he just wants to look like a chair or a curtain or whatever, doesn't he?

Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, I think if he was... were like out in the streets of London. Yeah. And he was planning to surveil like a building or something and he wanted to be in the perfect urban camouflage. Do you think maybe they'd notice him like sitting in a deck chair in front of the building?

Just like drawing the, just drawing stuff on the suit for like days. How else would you do that? Well, wouldn't he just do it by memory? Because he's got perfect memory. Oh, in the mine palace. Yeah, man. He's in his mind palace. This guy, they don't lean into the mine palace thing as much, do they?

No. Like he's clearly got like an infinite resource. of memory, but they're not like, let him, let's, he's going to go and look at a book at this book. I like how, for you, the mere idea of looking at a book is enough to make you vomit. I think that's fun. So, uh, Mike Ruff Holmes is in this one. That's right, Mr. Stephen Fry. That's right.

That's a, that's a fun inclusion. And it's also a fun inclusion because... You see, he's bottom. I was going to say Hugh Lorry House. Oh, okay. Is that that connection? Yeah, well, yeah, that's something. Was Hugh Lorry House at this point?

How long had he been House? Yeah, he would have definitely been House at this point. Is he still currently house? He's not house anymore. Is he currently Avenue Q? Or Avenue 5? It's over now. He's not Avenue 5.

He's not Avenue 5. He's not Avenue Q because that was a Muppet show. No, he wasn't in any of that? He was Veeped for a time, wasn't he? He might have been Veeped. Now he's the night manager's friend. Nightmanage's friend. They're villain.

They're villains. They're villain in each other. There's a new female lead in this. Numi Rapace. Joel Silver, the producer on this, apparently they wanted to go with a bond girl style approach, which is why they kill off Rachel McAdams early on, which also might not be dead, et cetera, I guess. And also,

she probably had some other stuff on. Well, apparently she wanted a bigger role, but they're like, no, I'm going to move. I think that was... Have we give you a smaller role? Yeah. And less money. Interested? And kill you off.

Interesting. In real life. Interesting. But not really, but really. I like Numi Rupase. I think she's great, but I think that was her being part of that core trio was an integral part of that first movie. You were saying Rachel McAdams is Irene Adler. Yeah, I think so too.

I think Numi Repace in this is fine. Yeah. But it's not like she doesn't operate a real. really as... She's not an equal. She's just kind of there. She's not Sherlock Holmes as foil. No.

She's just there. She knows some like Romani stuff. Yes. And her brother, whatever. But yeah, she can dance if she wants to. She could leave her friends behind. But she would never. Yeah, that's what I thought.

Yeah. Side note, I loved when they're like, don't get any booze in a Dr. Watson. He'll do a dance. Oh, the dancing he does. Delightful. Really good. Also, I like that the Watson we see in this is clearly. the Watson before he met his wife?

Like he's reverted back to his old ways. He's gambling and drinking and dancing. A loose unit we call him. Sherlock has tricked him initially at the start of the movie into thinking he's going on a stag do, but it's all the ruse. And so really this entire movie, he's decided the whole thing is his stag do.

It's like, oh, look, I'll prevent Professor Moriarty from starting a world war or whatever. But I'm going to do a dance or something. I'm going to booze and drink it and dance. Absolutely. Watson's hungover bagpipe waiting is incredible, though. Agreed. Love all of that.

So you mentioned this, but Moriati is played by Jared Harris. Now, if you know this... Jarrah, if you know he's like a criminal mastermind, I think it's fine to walk in the room and just shoot him with a gun. Absolutely. You know? This guy was going to start World War I. And maybe he...

Early. Yes. Early, yeah. I'm going to start early World War I. He said it. You can shoot him then, it's fine. You can definitely shoot him, yeah. What did he know early World War I?

God, this guy is a mastermind. He really is. I don't think he would have seen it coming because he certainly doesn't see his demise coming. Like he... Sherlock Holmes showing him down some falls. Yeah. Yeah.

His one weakness. He's one weakness, apparently, yeah. Just a strong push. Absolutely. So there's train big nonsense in this. I don't think the train big nonsense is as big as big as there. But not big train nonsense. That's a different thing.

Yeah. I think it's as good as the bigger wheel nonsense from the last one. No, great. Sherlock Holmes being dressed as a woman. Apparently was originally going to be a priest, but Robert Danny Jr. was like, let's mix it up. Let's do something else. I was a priest in Tropic Thunder or whatever. Oh, that's right, he was. Yeah, he's going to check off this weird list that he has. Check of dressing as a woman or whatever.

What do you think of that? Check of? Check it off. Check it off. We're good at this. We're like the Sherlock and Professor Moriati of whatever this is. Because we shove each other at the end? We always shove each other at the end of the videos. You don't see it, but just know it's there. Go back to some of the old videos. You can sometimes hear it in the outro.

You son of a bitch. Scuffling. So the plan is, as you said, it's to start World War early and then profit from the arms dealing. That's right. Moriati knows it's going to happen. He knows that it's an inevitability. And luckily Sherlock steps in at the right moment

to delay it 15 years or whatever. Good for him. This ends up being, I think that's good. this is a big gun movie also book sherlock i looked into this yes he will use a gun if he has to oh yes but this time he's just just going ham made they're right there aren't they there's a lot of when you have a hammer everything looks like a nail true when you have some steam punky guns yeah like 10 years too early everything looks like something you can shoot with a big steam punky gun that's true and yeah you're right and if everybody's shooting guns at you you don't need a knife

in a cane you can shoot and that's fine you can say be pinned down by a sniper and then use a cannon. That is fun. I think that's... It's a good bit. Amazing. Yeah. And again, Dr. Watson, you know, he's been pursued by this, you know, the world's

greatest assassin or whatever. Yeah. Who used to be one of his mates, I think. Yeah, whatever. And he's like, I'm going to blast this guy with a cannon. He collapses this whole tower on top of Moriati's headquarters or whatever. Shoot Moriati. Shoot him right then.

You know, he's right there. He's under some rubble or whatever. Yeah, he wouldn't expect it either. Say, say, Uru. Moriati, you're there? Uru, mate? Yes. Bang!

Ah! calculate that probability, you dumbass of me shooting you. Totally. The idea is that there's an assassin who's going to take out some kind of ambassador. I tuned in and out. Yeah, yeah. An ambassador... An ambassador assassination.

An ambassador assassination. There we go. An ambassador assassination. Yeah. And they need to figure out who it is, because it's Nomi Repu's brother, and they're trying to figure it out. Nomi Pippooce, did you say? Yeah, that's right.

Nomi Pappooz. I really like, it's a nice little goodbye to Watson. when it's Sherlock's like, I have to go and have a mind chess battle and then a mind fistfight battle. Like, you know all my methods. Like, you can do this. Just that it really levels up that idea of friendship and that they trust each other. That's right. I think that's like a really, a really good moment.

Also, I imagine he's not showing it, but Watson is very hungover. He did all the dancing and the drinking. Then he fired that cannon. Oh, my God. He's messed up. Yeah, he's a ring for the rest of his life. So yeah, they do mind chess. Sure.

King to be, whatever. etc. King to B2 from the bananas in pajamas. Always a winning strategy. And I'd really like the reveal and I don't always when they're like,

well, we did this a long time ago that Sherlock had figured out where his funds were involved Mrs. Watson who was a beautiful character and woman in her own right. That's right, Mason.

And they finally gave her something to do. They gave her something to do. Like I really enjoyed that callback. Sometimes in say in Ocean's 12 or whatever, they're like, yeah, like before the movie started or whatever. Or perhaps in The Man from Uncle.

Oh, yeah, exactly. Guy Ritchie joined whether like we did everything three weeks ago. Before the movie started. Don't even worry about it. None of this needed to happen, just quietly. Absolutely. How do you feel about the mind fight though? It's pretty good.

Yeah. Do you think that, I mean, it's two guys having them. I don't want to say how does it work because it doesn't. It's nonsense. No, of course not. Yeah. Yeah. But I just two guys locking eyes.

Yep. And just imagining fist fighting. Yeah. Like the exact same way, I think that's very funny. Oh, it's locked eyes. Maybe it's just like a primal dominance thing. Realistically, you could just lock eyes with them and just go, I won. Yeah.

Well, that's what TV Sherlock did. Yeah. And then Moriarty shot himself. So I guess you could have gone without method, you know? Yeah. So in the book. So he comes back. Did you read the book?

No. Who's got the time? Okay. And you do that vomiting thing when you try. Exactly. So in the book. It, of course, does return. returns just at the end of this movie.

In the book, he gets at... They should have said, they shouldn't have brought him back, and they should have had a title card at the end, and they would say, Sherlock Combs will return in books. Go to your local library. Yuck! Blah!

They'll be cleaning up vomit. Sherlock Holmes will return. No, I got... Don't worry about it. This might be in probably either version. That's great. So he goes into the chasm... Excuse me?

Chasem. Okay. And he uses his knowledge of Japanese wrestling to defeat Morrill. Oriardi and throw him into the chasm. Sure. And he managed to cling to a rock. So he never actually...

Folks, let him have this one. Sometimes you... Sometimes if you're a nerd, you read words, but you never say them. So just let him... Just let this one slide. Sometimes you're a dumb guy, though. Sometimes you're just a nerd. You're a dumb guy.

And so he never plummets all the way in, whereas this version does, you see him fall for a really long time. But luckily, and I didn't pick this, but he was given an oxygen device earlier, wasn't he? That's right. Exactly. A steam punky oxygen device, such a device that would never ever exist in this time period. Not ever. Correct.

But it's just there and he swipes it, I guess. Yeah. And I love that it is the threat on Watson that forces him into action. Because it's a selfless act ultimately. I mean, you know, the oxygen. Yeah, the oxygen. I guess, is it better than a wingsuit? I guess it's better than I fashioned my tailcoat into a wingsuit.

But I've just written Sherlock survives. Happy with this? Like, how do you feel about that? Because it's a tricky thing to do. Because in the show, and I hate to bring it back to it, they were just like, well, you all had a lot of theories, but you're an idiot. He just did, all right? You dummies. Yeah, I don't know.

Yeah, it's better than nothing. But maybe they could have done nothing. You know? Like, you could have really left. I think we would have got that third one maybe quicker if there was more ambiguity about. Interesting. Like you don't do the couch camouflage and you just see the keyboard with the, and it types and it's the question mark.

And maybe you end it like that. But then you might think it's a gaga, g-gaggag a ghost. Oh, yeah. Yeah. And sometimes there's a ghost in Sherlock Holmes. Just kidding, it's never a ghost. Sometimes it's a glowing dog. Or maybe you'd think maybe the oxygen mask did it.

You know, because you saw the oxygen mask earlier. Yeah. What happened on that oxygen mask? Right? Click. Oxygen mask did it. Anyway, it's time for Sherlock Holmes, colon, a game of shadows. Oh, this is the trivia section.

Whoa! Yeah. The 15 second on-screen dance between Jude Law and Nomi Rapace, that took three days to shoot. Of course it did. They went off, mate. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's also nice because all the extras would get paid for three days.

You know? True. Yeah. The quote about horses being dangerous at both ends and crafty in the middle. That's attributed to Ian Fleming, author of the James Bond novels. Okay. So that's interesting. I love that quote because I'm very horse suspicious.

I don't know if you know that about me. You're so horsespicious. I am, man. And even the little one. You know the little like... Like a Shetland pony. Yeah, like, you think like, oh, they're nice and but they're like... They'll bite.

Yeah, they'll bite. Because they're all imbred. They're all like fucked up. It's like, like, designer dogs. Yeah, right. You know, don't touch them. Okay, but have you ever seen a heartwarming video of a Shetland pony meeting like a bunch of dogs? No.

I mean, should I? Yeah. All right. Yeah, man. I just don't want anything to do with that. Well, too bad. It's in your head now. And your heart is being warmed.

Thank you. Do you know why you can't. use a lavatory at a train station in this era? Because that's meant to this. That's part of it. Okay. Because it used to be that you just splatter out onto the tracks. It's just an open tunnel.

Okay. So that's why. But they built them. What do you mean they built them? You said the reason they can't use a lavatory in this year. Yeah. But they would have just had... I'm saying in this era, train lavatories was just a hole onto the tracks.

Okay. So if people were just shitting at the station, the train moves away and there's just just piles of shit there. Oh, I see. So you do it in the, you do it. You do it on the run and then it's going through the forest. Yeah, exactly. Okay, I understand.

Okay, right. That's how well. I thought he meant because there were facilities at the train station. No, no, no, no, no, Mason. I think you'll find that there's, there's not. Wow. Wow. Some society.

I agree. Anyways, on a budget of $125 million, which is fairly reasonable, I think. This made 543.8. That's good. That's good. A third movie went into development immediately. So in 2011, but you might I'd have noticed that this hasn't happened.

Correct. As of yet, this keeps getting kicked down the road. And there's a number of reasons why Robert Downey Jr. Obviously got locked into doing Marvel movies for like the next decade. And now. And Dr. Doodle. And Dr. Doolittle. Yeah, one of those or two of those.

One, there's one Dr. Doolittle movie that he made. We talked about last week. There's my dad's a judge and he killed somebody and I love that. Defending my murdering dad, who's a murderer. Robert Danny Jr. claimed in 2016 that it was going to film in 2016. Like it was happening with Guy Ritchie. In 2019, Guy Ritchie was replaced by director Dexter Fletcher, which I think is a really good choice. It nearly happened again in 2021, but that was delayed due to COVID, and they didn't want to kind of shoehorn that in that era.

Also in 2022, there were some TV spinoffs announced. We're getting one now. I don't know whether that's one of the direct ones that they mentioned in 2022. And Susan Downey, who is married to Robert Danny Jr. and is also a woman in her own right. Yes, but also, yeah, she's a producer. Yes. She said recently that, yeah, this, it is happening. Did you say it like that?

It's happening. Just get off my back. Robert. Yes. They said it in their own homes. I think they should. I agree. Honestly, before going back to this, I was like, I can take or leave whether this returns.

But these are really fun. I agree. Yeah, and everyone's still alive. So, you know, that's good for a movie. Don't say that in a video. You don't have to... You don't have to CGI someone. Everybody...

If you say that everybody in this movie is going to fire a gun, but they've been covered in a special powder and they all burst in the flame simultaneously. And then they all die. You can't say that everybody, people are still alive in one of these videos. Okay, fine. And they die. Everybody in this movie is dead.

Good. Is that better? Ah, yes. Great, fantastic. Anyway, do you know, we have a service called big sandwich.com, Mason? Yeah, I know. Yeah, it's pretty cool for a number of reasons. One of the reasons is that you get early videos there.

That's right. Here's a hint towards next week. What is next week? I think we're doing movies about video games that aren't based on video games. So we're going to do the last Starfighter. Oh. We're going to do ready player one. Does that count?

We could definitely do ready play one. There's a few in here. It's really bad though. Oh, allegedly it's better than the book. Allegedly, yeah, it's better than the book. Better than the book. Yeah, I've got a few on the list here. Some are bad and some are not as bad. Nice.

There's a bunch of stuff going on there also, isn't there? There's video game let's play. That's right. There's bonus movie commentaries. That's right. There's bonus podcasts. We do a podcast, don't we? Called the Weekly Planet.

That's got its own YouTube channel. It's on Spotify. It's on Apple, whatever, etc. It's on all the things. We've covered all sorts of Sherlock media. Probably. If you're a lockhead. Yeah, if you're a like head man.

Or a sure face. Or a Watsonian. Yeah. Or are you living in Watsonia? You might live in the suburb of Melbourne. The Melbourne suburb of Watsonia. You know where we've done a podcast for you. And we know where you live.

And we're coming for you. We're going to come and get you. We've got swords in sticks. Yep. We have actual guns. No, we have real guns. Real modern guns too. Yeah, we're going to get you with them.

If you don't like it, move to Greensboro. But we'll get you there too. It's true. It's only a matter of time. Slightly longer. Thank you so much to Ben and Lawrence for the edit. Thank you, Ben and Lawrence. And we'll see you guys in the next one. Grab it out, Jeremy, you guys.

We'll see you soon. Bye. Bye.