Byron Brubaker (hypathio7)

Mavis Gary (Theron) is writing the final book in her series of teen novels. Her series is not as successful as she would have everyone believe and she is a ghost writer. She derives this final entry in the series from her attempt to relive her high school days in her home town and reconnect with her old boyfriend. Diablo Cody reminds us throughout of the romantic teenage ideals of the character from the imagination of her character. Mavis is hot on the surface in the way popular girls always are, but we see the artificial ways in which she achieves her beauty. Her normal is hung over, baggy clothes, ignoring her little dog, and being mean. Buddy Slade (Wilson) is the old beau, who is now a responsible husband and father. Matt Freehauf (Oswalt) is a victim of high school bullying, who Mavis has nearly forgotten. He has supplemented his old hobby of mixing and matching body-parts on action figures with bootlegging hooch in his garage. The performances are uniformly great. Mavis' breakdown at the end will make you squirm and her opening up to Freehauf's sister will surprise.

More explosions and more slow motion. Downey Jr. is way more mischievous as Holmes and Law is even more put-upon as Watson, who is preparing to marry. I love Noomi Rapace from the Swedish version of the Millennium Trilogy, but her talents are wasted here. As the replacement female character for McAdams' Irene Adler, her role as a gypsy is hardly crucial to the plot. Holmes even makes a major mistake in piecing together some clues in an effort to avoid a terrorist crime, which really serves to stuff the plot with empty action. The figurative and literal chess game between Holmes and Moriarty (Harris) is great as we see them plan their moves against each other in advance. For those who know Conan Doyle's works the ending will not be surprising, though the details are a bit different.