History Film / SherlockHolmesAGameOfShadows

* MagicPlasticSurgery: [[spoiler:Sim's brother is made to look like one of the ambassadors as part of the peace summit plot. The "magic" part is averted, though, in that when trying to identify him, Sim and Watson look for exactly the sort of telltale clues that this trope usually ignores. It also probably helps that the guest list uses sketched portraits, not photographs, so Renee's disguise doesn't have to be a perfect replication.]]

* {{Understatement}}: When Moriarty sends thugs to kill Watson and Mary as they travel to Brighton for their honeymoon, Holmes attempts to empathise by describing the situation as 'terribly inconvenient.' It doesn't quite do their predicament justice.

* UnitConfusion: The 6-8 miles per hour side-wind in which Moran makes his famous shot. That wind speed would barely move the air, let alone a bullet. The conditions portrayed in the flashback and which would make the shot the nigh-superhuman feat it is described as are far more in line with a 6-8 ''feet per second'' wind speed.( Which is between 4 and 5 1/2 miles per hour).

* ChessMotifs: All over the place, especially in the GrandFinale, which consists largely of a literal chess game between Holmes and Moriarty. The game itself is based on a real life game between Bent Larson (Holmes) and Tigran Petrosian (Moriarty) in 1966 (with the colors inverted), with the pieces and moves on the board mirroring what's going on in the ballroom. The finale is changed, with Moriarty continuing past where Petrosian resigned. Even as the characters stop directly commenting on how each move mirror an in story event, it keeps happening (Holmes reveals he knows about the red book, and checks Moriarty. Moriarty fingers his pocket, realizes the book is still there, blocks the check, feeling confident he's foiled Holmes, only for Holmes to reveal he's already swapped the book, much like how on the board he's already got his pieces in position to checkmate Moriarty, who all along was powerless to stop the real checkmate).

* ChessMotifs: All over the place, especially in the GrandFinale, which consists largely of a literal chess game between Holmes and Moriarty.

* DemotedToExtra: Inspector Lestrade gets hit by this. He may not have been one of the most central characters in the first, but he still had a decent amount of scenes and relevance to the plot. In the second movie, he is entirely left out, only briefly appearing at the end with few lines. His sergeant gets about the same amount of screentime, though he had a number of scenes in the original film as well.

In the film, eccentric amateur detective Holmes and his companion Watson travel across Europe with a gypsy adventuress to foil an intricate plot by their cunning nemesis, Professor Moriarty. The film follows an original premise incorporating elements of Conan Doyle's short stories "The Final Problem" and "The Empty House".

* SequelHook: While [[spoiler:Moriarty dies in the end by means of the famous [[DisneyVillainDeath Reichenbach Falls fight]] and is plan is unsuccessful, Moran--who was immensely loyal to him and enraged when he almost got killed before--is shown to have escaped and still be at large. Also, the world has yet to know Holmes [[DisneyDeath survived the fall himself]] and given he only hints at that to Watson rather than outright reveals himself to him,]] he may want to keep it that way for the time being.

** Again in the finale [[spoiler:when Sherlock has started his sacrifice and Watson steps out onto the balcony, which would have guaranteed Moriarty's defeat had the fight actually broken out.]]

* BattleInTheCenterOfTheMind: Holmes and Moriarty have an AwesomenessByAnalysis-off as they plan their attacks.
** Though the twist is that it's showing exactly how a real fist-fight ''would'' go if they went for it. They just both happen to be predicting the same sequence of events [[spoiler:in which Moriarty wins and throws Holmes off the balcony. To avoid this, Holmes blows the ashes of his pipe into Moriarty's eyes, temporarily blinding him and giving Holmes enough time to send them both over the balcony]].

* FanDisservice: Naked Stephen Fry.

* InvoluntaryCharityDonation: [[spoiler:The assets seized from Moriarty by the police are used to make an anonymous donation to the Widows and Orphans of War fund. Because Moriarty is TheSociopath, he doesn't have any person he cares about. But his war chest? That stabs Moriarty as badly as his killing Irene did to Sherlock. The donation recipient is just the final insult of the deed by Sherlock.]]

* NeatFreak: Mycroft is implied to be this. Doesn't like to shake hands, barely goes anywhere other than his home and office, carries [[ChekhovsGun a personal supply of oxygen]]... even his habit of walking around his house naked could be a reference to SuperOCD sufferer Creator/HowardHughes, and / or the biopic, ''Film/TheAviator''.

''Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows'' is a 2011 British-American action mystery film directed by Creator/GuyRitchie and produced by Joel Silver, Lionel Wigram, Susan Downey and Dan Lin. It is a sequel to the 2009 film ''Film/{{Sherlock Holmes|2009}}'', and likewise features the Franchise/SherlockHolmes and Dr. John Watson characters created by Sir Creator/ArthurConanDoyle. The screenplay was written by Michele Mulroney and Kieran Mulroney. Creator/RobertDowneyJr and Creator/JudeLaw reprise their roles as Holmes and Watson and were joined by Creator/NoomiRapace as Simza, Creator/StephenFry as Mycroft Holmes and Jared Harris as Professor Moriarty.

* GPSEvidence: When looking at some letters that Simza's brother Rene has sent her, Holmes and Watson notice that they are of the stock used by a printing press, and are musty, as if stored in a damp place. A wine stain on one of the sheets allows Holmes to conclude that they were from a wine cellar near a printing press, which is how they locate the anarchist leader Claude Ravache.

* SerialKillingsSpecificTarget: Moriarty bombs an entire hotel full of industrialists in order to obfuscate Moran's murder of one specific delegate.

* AluminiumChristmasTrees: It wasn't unheard of for British aristocrats to walk around naked in front of their servants, who were [[ValuesDissonance regarded as part of the furniture]].

* UpToEleven: Almost every trope in the first film is cranked up in the second.

*** Shortly before Watson has one when he holds up his cap to the small gap between the gun's barrel and shield, only for Moran to instantly put a bullet through it.

* TheEndOrIsIt: [[spoiler:A Not Quite Dead Sherlock sneaks into the room where Watson is typing the story of their adventure and types a question mark after "THE END" in Watson's manuscript.]]

* FreezeFrameBonus: Pay close attention: when Moriarty first joins Holmes on the balcony, Holmes [[spoiler:is taking a puff on Mycroft's oxygen device. He quickly palms it, distracts Moriarty by having him set up their chess game, and then slips it back into his pocket.]]