‘Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol’ Now Has Serious Competition For Worst Sequel Title Of The Year
Well, Guy Ritchie‘s “Sherlock Holmes” sequel now has a title and it’s pretty terrible. E! reports and IGN confirms that the anticipated sequel shall henceforth be known as: “Sherlock Holmes: A Game Of Shadows.” Ouch.
If the idea was to create a title that will obfuscate any idea of what the film is about, while also sounding like a game made by a fourth rate company for the original Nintendo, well, mission accomplished. The title now ranks with “Transformers: The Dark Of The Moon,” “Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol” and “The Adventures Of Tintin: The Secret Of The Unicorn” (yeah, this writer went there) as one of the worst of the year. It even ranks alongside the worst of all time with “Quantum Of Solace” (we still don’t know what that was supposed to mean).
Starring Robert Downey Jr., Jude Law, Noomi Rapace, Stephen Fry, Jared Harris and featuring a surprise cameo (don’t click if you don’t want to know) the film will hit on December 16th. By then we’ll figure out if ‘A Game Of Shadows’ refers to a sinister game of hide-and-seek or if the plot involves deadly shadow puppets gone dangerously awry.
While I agree it is not a great name I give them credit for not going with Sherlock Holmes 2. Sticking 2 or 3 or whatever number on the end is a pet hate of mine.
Let\’s be honest here, when you\’re talking generic, \’thought it up ten seconds before the deadline\’ titles, the winner is still The Dark Knight Rises.
Complaining about a movie\’s title does not make you funny, cool, smart, clever, or edgy. No, not even if the movie in question is directed by Steven Spielberg, produced by Peter Jackson, and based off of a legendary comic book series by Herge. You can tell a writer is desperate when they have to use the worhtless device \”yeah, I went there\” to try to manufacture controversy rather than spark it.
The title of a movie has just about as impact on the final resuilt as the paper stock the screenplay is printed on. Deal with it.
Dark of the Moon, in any other context, is a nicely poetic idiom, but attached to Transformers it just makes me want to blow my face off. A Game of Shadows and Ghost Protocol are both simply generic. Quantum of Solace is an absolute favorite of mine, as it plays on Bond\’s immeasurable grief and the reveal of Quantum as this Bond\’s universe\’s SPECTRE.
Actually that title\’s not too bad. At least, compared to the unbelievably bad titles of Transformers: Dark of the Moon and X-Files: I Want to Believe.
LOL