Screenwriters Michael Robert Johnson, Anthony Peckham, and Simon Kinberg whittle the Holmes character down to the basics, reasonably expand him using some of Doyle's background information to give him a slight action hero edge, develop a pretty
crackerjack story involving the occult and a plan to recreate the Gunpowder Plot using a Victorian - style chemical weapon, and
read between the lines of the Holmes / Watson dynamic enough to make us
read further between the lines.
Although wearing a sweater is not a requirement while
reading A Colder War, it might provide a modicum of protection against the chills Cumming so calmly inflicts via his
crackerjack depiction of international espionage.