Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows

Dir: Guy Ritchie - Starring: Robert Downey Jr, Jude Law, Noomi Rapace

How you felt about the first of Guy Ritchie's Sherlock Holmes movies will pretty much dictate how much you like this one. Because it slavishly follows the rule of sequels that everything must be bigger and that more is always better.

Many will find it impenetrable and I sympathise and pretty much agree with that take. This is Guy Ritchie – never the most understated of directors – dialling it up to 11 as Robert Downey and Jude Law mug their way through an ever-increasing number of action set-pieces with barely a pause for breath. They struggle to get their increasingly arch and camp buddy banter in between the breathlessly edited fist-fights and shoot-outs.

Noomi Rapace (the original Girl with the Dragon Tattoo) is along for the ride but given little to work with (the previous love interest having been killed off in a prologue that will make no sense without the first film). Best of all is the big villain, played with suave menace by Jarred Harris (son of the late Richard). It is his and Holmes' exchanges, the quietest moments of the film, that have most impact.

But hey, pay the money, take the ride. There is certainly fun to be had amongst the frenetic action, and a fair amount of humour, even if the film itself leaves you feeling rather beaten over the head.

Straw Dogs has changed a lot in its new incarnation. The basic plot is the same: a man and his new bride in a new location are threatened and attacked by brutish locals before he fights back and exacts bloody revenge. But changing the set-up from an American in England to an LA scriptwriter in the inbred redneck South moves the focus from the unpleasant moral complexities of man's violent nature into yet another hillbilly horrorshow, fairly effective as a heavy-handed thriller but nothing more. True Blood fans may enjoy Alexander Skarsgard's villain, but this is a disappointment from usually intelligent writer director Rod Lurie.

Men in their 40s (44 to be exact) are the subject of I Melt With You, as four old buddies get together for an annual boys' bash. But, as some ham-fisted opening cards imply, beneath their apparently successful outer lives lurk inner disillusionment. The R18 certificate for, amongst other things, 'suicide” offers clues as to the direction their week of drugs and debauchery will take. The quartet of Thomas Jane, Rob Lowe, Jeremy Piven and Christian McKay (so impressive as Orson in Me and Orson Welles) run the gamut of soul-searching acting and a great soundtrack is matched with slick music video cinematography.

Nuclear war destroys New York; eight disparate survivors make it to the (surprisingly large) basement of their apartment. That's the first 60 seconds of The Divide. And that's where the remaining film plays out, with some frankly bonkers – but interesting – exterior developments left unexplored as the group quickly descends into factional paranoia and violence, man's inhumanity to man (and particularly women) on full display. The unrelentingly grim trajectory isn't helped by the drama being played at a continually hysterical pitch. Michael Biehn's building supervisor is particularly over the top and what poor Rosanna Arquette is doing here is hard to fathom.

The Field of Blood isn't actually a movie, as I realised when I started watching, but a slice of BBC murder mystery based on one of the Paddy Meehan novels written by Denise Mina. And that's just what it looks and acts like, an average Saturday night TV drama. Paddy is a young aspiring journalist whose life is thrown into turmoil when her 10-year-old cousin is accused of murdering a two-year-old. Ostracised by her family, plucky Paddy sets off to prove his innocence. It's OK, in a low-key TV sort of way, with good use of its Glasgow setting.