Two years ago, I wrote a five-star review of Guy Ritchie’s over-caffeinated take on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s titular character, the one and only Sherlock Holmes. I was blown away by the prowess that Ritchie achieved in making over the Holmes character. Diving head in, Ritchie resurrected the madly inventive character with a blissfully cerebral and brutal framework that echoed the character’s strengths and addictions and jammed him in a movie playing to the chemistry between actors Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law.

If there was a weak link in the movie, it came from the rather mundane meddling of its villain. Ultimately, Professor Moriarty, Holmes’s great equal and main nemesis, was hinted at but his menacing presence went largely unfelt. Thankfully, A Game of Shadows fixes that with the inclusion of Jared Harris as Moriarty and a masterful story about tackling war-profiting with a new cinematic gusto, courtesy of the celebrated photographic aesthetics cinematographer Philippe Rousselot.

Yes, friends and cherished foes, Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows is, in my humble opinion, another five-star affair. Full of great steampunk flair, a cinematic palette of style and saturation that extends the world of the original, and a villain who is as charming as he is smarmy, Ritchie’s second outing nearly topples the original in its bromance and bravado and, at moments, much more confident in its steely swagger than ever before.

Written by the husband-and-wife team of Kieran and Michele Mulroney, A Game of Shadows picks up about a year from the original’s events. Holmes (Downey) is hot on the trail of a criminal mastermind that seems to be just one step ahead of him at all times. Professor James Moriarty (Harris) is running an intellectual advantage over the great detective and uses Irene Adler (Rachel McAdams) to draw Holmes into a mystery beginning with the murder of the Crown Prince of Austria and has Holmes, Dr. Watson (Law),  Mycroft Holmes (a very naked Stephen Fry) traveling from England to France to Germany and, finally, to Switzerland.

Obsessed with the connections he sees alone, Holmes plays down Watson’s marriage to Mary Morstan (Kelly Reilly) and risks the life of Simza (Noomi Rapace, the original dragon-tattooed girl), a Gypsy fortune teller, as he frenetically pursues his intellectual equal whose mild-mannered disguise as a respected scholar and well-read author keeps him in the public eye and far away from the similarly-faced henchmen who assassinate political targets and plant pedestrian-killing bombs.

Downey provides the cross-dressing laughs as he mixes his particular brand of mischief with a healthy dose of physicality while director Ritchie delves deeper into the Holmes-vision mechanics of his street fighting credentials. Once again, purists who could not see past the writing need not come a-knocking upon this sequel’s door. Yes, the addictions are there -- but so is the stylized gunplay and the hand-to-hand combat scenes.

There’s a looser vibe to A Game of Shadows, though. One that’s more inviting, less strict to the Doyle code of heroics. Warner Bros is relaxed enough and confident enough with the success of the original to let Ritchie cut loose a bit. A Game of Shadows is dynamically amped with more unhinged Holmes in scenes where his detective work includes a study of invisibility and ever-ready narcotics. The film is theatrically visual, more hysterical and wholly bloodier. There are more mad ninja-like skills on display in the streets and lots and lots of swashbuckling bravado inside and outside of trains, through dark forests, damp dungeons, and dizzying heights. Holmes even has a ride on a miniature horse in scenes that photographically play off and spoof those mythological stories we are so used to.

If this sounds like a “boys only” adventure, well, it is. Sadly, Rapace has little to do but flip a fortune card over and care for Holmes when he is wounded. McAdams opens the narrative to connect us to the original tale, but her story ends quite -- as we can only guess -- suddenly and tragically. Reilly gets amusingly disposed of from a train with assurances from Holmes that she is being looked after by his brother. One by one, the women are plucked from the tale and tucked away. In fact, the only femininity of the picture comes from a cross-dressing Downey, but it is all in good Pirates of the Caribbean fun.

Don’t fear, though. Holmes has everything planned out. No corner is unturned and no scenario unplanned for. He even out-guesses the audience at times, proving again that  pure popcorn escapism is a fun -- and high-styled – time at the movies.

(Released by Warner Bros. Pictures and rated “PG-13” for intense sequences of violence and action, and some drug material.)

Review also posted at www.franksreelreviews.com.