More US citizens now die from prescription drug abuse than from car accidents. It’s a scary state of affairs and no mistake: a pharmaceutical epidemic crying out for dramatic treatment.

Small wonder then it appealed to Scott Z. Burns, a writer who, as 2011’s Contagion revealed, is a dab hand when it comes to fleshing out apocalyptic fact-based scenarios. Burns had hoped to direct his Side Effects script himself, but elected to hand the megaphone over to Steven Soderbergh when the latter showed an interest.

The result bears out the wisdom of that decision, Soderbergh’s cool self-lensing bringing an aptly clinical sheen to a fiendishly ingenious tale that doesn’t need pills to play with our perceptions.

Kicking off with a slow zoom into an Upper West Side apartment building – the first of a number of nods to Hitchcock’s Psycho – that is shortly revealed to be the site of a bloody crime scene, Side Effects quickly establishes an atmosphere of anxiety and unease.

Back-tracking three months, we are introduced to Emily (Rooney Mara), a 28-year-old graphic designer whose husband Martin (Channing Tatum), a former Wall Street broker, is about to be released from prison after a four-year stretch for insider trading.

Emily should be delighted to be getting her man back, but it can be hard to readjust. Sex for her is a loveless hump spent staring at the ceiling, while sanity is only maintained with a regular intake of antidepressants.

Yet it still comes as a shock when Mara climbs into her hubby’s shiny motor, plants a red-heeled foot on the accelerator and drives full tilt into a parking garage wall. Her dice with death leaves her with a bump on the bonce, one very concerned partner and a new shrink in the form of Dr Jonathan Banks (Jude Law), a highly successful physician with no shortage of restoratives for his troubled patient. None of the usual suspects seem to work, however, prompting Banks to prescribe a radical new drug recommended to him by Emily’s erstwhile psychiatrist (Catherine Zeta-Jones).

The pill is named Ablixa, but it might as well be called Miracle Cure for the good it does to Rooney’s temperament, well-being and sex drive. As Tatum gasps contentedly after one sweaty bonk, “whoever makes this drug is going to be fucking rich!”

Dry mouth, nausea and irritation? Sure, Emily can handle those. Sleepwalking, though, is another matter completely, leading as it does to a surprise reversal that turns Side Effects on its head and sends it spiralling into conspiracy thriller territory.

To disclose more would be a disservice to both the viewer and Burns’ intricate plotting. Suffice to say that Law’s smug self-assurance does not last for long as he confronts the very real possibility of losing his liberty as well as his licence. “I don’t understand it,” sighs Tatum’s bewildered mother ( Compliance star Ann Dowd). “You watch the commercials on TV and people are getting better!”

As much as the film toys with social commentary, though, it is at heart a noir in the twisty tradition of Double Indemnity , Body Heat and The Postman Always Rings Twice . The small-screen likes of Quincy, M.E. and Diagnosis Murder also come to mind as Law turns detective to fathom how deep the rabbit hole goes.

And there’s a satisfying strain of sexual ambiguity thrown in as well, with Zeta-Jones’ stern specs and ever-present clipboard hinting at more than just professionalism.

With no dragon tattoo or facial piercings this time around, Mara has no difficulty convincing as the “wounded bird” Law takes under his wing. Yet there is a core of steel lurking beneath the surface, just visible enough to hint at her character’s true nature, while being sufficiently oblique to wonder who this woman is when she’s not suffocated by depression.

Law flirts nimbly with his own screen persona, inviting us to revel in his doc’s comeuppance before winning us over anew with his tenacity and smarts.

Zeta-Jones, meanwhile, gives the film an invigorating dose of old-school vamp, channelling the likes of Ava Gardner and Barbara Stanwyck for one of the few directors who really knows how to use her. (And her husband too, if Soderbergh’s upcoming Liberace biopic is anything to go by.)

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OK, so the line in question arrives in the middle of a locomotive stand-off, with Holmes and Watson only going supine to avoid a hail of Grenadier bullets ripping through a train carriage. But even through the cordite, the whiff of homoeroticism is hard to miss in a film that often forgoes deductive mystery in favour of unabashed man-love.

Witness the scene in which a dole-faced RDJ stands morosely by as Law walks down the aisle with his betrothed (Kelly Reilly), or another in which Watson labours manfully, and tearfully, to haul a wounded Holmes back from the brink of death. (God only knows what stops him administering the kiss of life.)

Small wonder Noomi Rapace barely gets a look-in as the gypsy fortune teller who joins them on their travels, this girl needing rather more than a dragon tattoo to draw Sherlock’s gaze.

Yet as close as Rob and Jude get as they pursue an international conspiracy from London and Paris to Switzerland, there’s an even more intriguing relationship in A Game Of Shadows : that between Sherlock and his fabled nemesis Moriarty, played with suavity and silky menace by Mad Men ’s Jared Harris.

Not only does this ensure Holmes 2 is an improvement on its predecessor, it also lends welcome dramatic heft to a film that might otherwise be defined by its smirking insouciance – not to mention present Holmes with an adversary who is his intellectual as well as physical equal.

Boys aloud

Having a decent antagonist really makes the difference here. An early encounter between Holmes and Moriarty in the latter’s study recalls nothing so much as a Bondian tête-à-tête. (Rarely has urbane chit-chat about chess, graphology and celestial mechanics carried so potent a charge.)

Yet it does bolster your suspicion that this is a Boy’s Own club from the director’s chair downwards, something the virtual cameo of Rachel McAdams’ returning Irene Adler does little to dispel. You’d think Rapace would be well placed to inject an oestrogenic element as the Tarot card-reading Sim.

Yet the Swedish actress – not looking entirely comfortable in her first English-speaking role – is little more than a gooseberry, her third-wheel status reflected in the solemn and unsmiling demeanour she projects even when the movie’s at its goofiest.

You could argue husband and wife screenwriters Kieran and Michele Mulroney are just being true to their source material – the loyal Mrs Hudson apart, Sir Arthur’s yarns were never renowned for their female characters.

But given how little literary fidelity they display in other areas, their failure to give Shadows a satisfying non-male presence must surely count as a missed opportunity. The piece’s general attitude towards women is neatly encapsulated by the scene in which Sherlock pushes Reilly’s Mary off the aforementioned choo-choo.

Her indignities do not end there either, a later scene requiring her to share the screen with a naked Stephen Fry in his role as Holmes’ elder brother Mycroft. Take our word for it, readers: this is one blockbuster that would not be better for being in 3D.

Heading for a Falls

Like the bowler-hatted sniper who dogs its heroes’ footsteps, Shadows doesn’t always hit the target. But in the action department, it scores a bullseye, an opening scrap between Sherlock and four assailants setting the benchmark for a later skirmish with a seemingly invincible Cossack, a frantic dash through a forest splintered by heavy artillery, and a climactic confrontation at Reichenbach Falls that Conan Doyle lovers will recognise from The Final Problem .

Yes, a rather unpleasant scene at Harris’ secret weapon factory introduces a note of flesh-puncturing sadism more in keeping with producer Joel Silver’s Lethal Weapo n quadrilogy.

But this is counterbalanced by an amusing interlude in a Romany camp that enables Ritchie to reference the raucous rough and tumble of his 2000 caper Snatch . (“Brace yourself, Watson,” Downey mutters as he and Law are circled by pickpockets. “We’re about to be violated!”).

Clocking in at 10 minutes over the two-hour mark, you might expect Shadows to drag. But the film romps along at a merry old clip, rarely pausing for breath as it speeds across Europe via car, boat and Shetland Pony.

Admittedly, you might wish Moriarty had a slightly more fiendish masterplan than the one he eventually details. But this is a minor blip in a higher-grade sequel that puts as few feet wrong as Sherlock does on the dance floor during the peace-summit finale.

“Our relationship has not yet run its course,” Downey Jr. informs Law at one point. And if Shadows achieves anything, it’s to make us hope he’s right.

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