1 out of 5

Directed by: Philip Barantini

New director, new editor, new DP, new composer… we maintain all of our core cast, as well as series writer Jack Thorne, but something within this combination goes very awry in the third Enola Holmes entry. Stepping far back from things, it’s possible to align that the mysteries or characters have never been that deep, and the attempts to blend in with Sherlock lore or history somewhat surface level, so in that regard perhaps nothing has changed, but from its very first shots to its cringey conclusion, EH3 never manages the hand-waiving distracting charm of its preceding entries, and is certainly leagues away from the ebullient, somewhat innocent energy that kicked things off.

Yes, Enola (Millie Bobbie Brown) is an adult now, on the verge of getting married to Tewkesbury (Louis Partridge), but you can easily do a grown up version of Sherlock’s-sister without sucking all the fun out of it; and that wasn’t really the approach anyway, with aging-up the series apparently just meaning we’ll glance at British classicism / racism in the most eye-rollingly MCU “my best friend is gay” kind of way – not to mention inconsistent, as two leading characters being people of color in 19th century Malta never really factors much into the conversation – and apparently to balance out this oh so seriousness, Thorne, or director Philip Barantini, or whomever, decided to up the whimsy to painful levels, with nary a moment passing without Brown acknowledging the 4th wall, sincerely ruining any and every possible moment of drama or tension.

Also: we’ll presume there was a conscious attempt to limit the runtime – good! – but in so doing the edits are of the Taken style of cut-cut-cut per second, not just to maybe cover for some lacking budget in fights or chases, but more notably during dialogue, with every cut also being an endless stream of J- and L-cuts such that statements and responses never overlap in a meaningful manner.

Finally, let’s zip all of this up with second-screen style writing (and editing) that kind of meta understands that the movie isn’t very entertaining, so we’re not going to leave any space for any, y’know, mystery or detectiving of any sort, and instead just connect clue to solution within the span of a sentence – say it two or three times with a flashback to the previous sentence a minute ago as well, hit up that person on their third screen – and also use cutesy highlights on the screen to show you what to look at, even though it’s already center-framed.

I can understand how / why we ended up here, and there are good intentions at the fringes of this. Alas, those intentions did not come together for the execution. Backed by a particularly uninvolved performance from Cavill, and Brown not yet settled into what her post-Stranger Things acting style really is, this is a pretty failed franchise entry, and unfortunately just an uninteresting piece on its own terms as well.

In Enola Holmes 3, Sherlock is kidnapped and Enola goes to save him. There’s no mystery and no twists. A “plan” amounts to pulling a gun on someone. Devious!