The let down in this film is that it could have been quite beautiful if the crucial segments had been handled without the melodrama. Most of the film is slow and muted, and the end jars in context, and not in a way that can complement by contrast.

Cumberbatch is easily the best thing about the film – he makes a classic villain, powerful and menacing at times, low and squirming at others, in much the same way as The Joker in the best Batman graphic novels.

The film is completely ridiculous, its outcomes impossible, but it leaves us looking forward to the next edition, with its promise of another villain in its post-credits scene.