Enola Holmes

Ten Second Review: Perfectly fine for an evening watch, but it would be much harder to recommend if you had to buy a ticket.

At this point there’s a Sherlock Holmes for most tastes. There’s certainly room for a couple more fun iterations and a few spin-offs, but I think in recent years the deer stalker donning detective has been rather saturated in appearances. Netflix clearly disagrees so they’ve cranked out a spin off in the style of Guy Richie’s recent offerings.

Enola (Millie Bobby Brown) is the seldom mentioned Holmes sibling. Quite a lot younger than her older brothers, she was raised almost exclusively by her mother (Helena Bonham Carter). When her mother disappears, Enola knows she has run away and it’s just a case of following the clues to find her. Should be no problem for the sister of England’s best private investigator.

To be perfectly honest, there isn’t too much to say about this film. Millie Bobby Brown is quite good, Henry Cavill’s Holmes is a singular and softer take on the character, the film is fun (if riddled with narrative flaws and questionable decisions) and it steals enough stylistically from Richie and RDJ’s films as to be basically a sequel. It does enough to be enjoyable for those who want to enjoy it and enough for those who take enjoyment in picking films apart.

The thing is, I feel my review would be far harsher if I had had to consider the cost of a ticket. Generally when reviewing films I take this cost in to account in regards to whether I recommend seeing a film, going as far as to say whether it’s worth seeing in the cinema, waiting to watch it at home or not bothering at all. The problem is that if you have Netflix, as so many do, that consideration is rather nulenvoid. It ceases to become a question of whether a film is worth paying to see and much more about whether a film is worth the time to watch. 

I remarked about watching Colette that it wasn’t worth the time of going to the cinema, sitting through it and then getting home again. To be honest it was intended to highlight the issues I felt with the biographical nature of that film, but it does pull at an interesting thread; do we take the time a film takes to consume into account in judging its value and content? At two hours and change Enola Holmes is certainly less time than going to a cinema, sitting through trailers, watching the film and getting home, and given that many people have Netflix, the film is included in your fee.  

So the question is not the same as is another film worth watching in the cinema and it may rather skew your opinion. 

To be clear, I think the film is fine, fun and fairly amusing. It certainly serves an answer to the question of “what shall we watch on Netflix this evening?” and has some rather nice sentiments and one liners, but I don’t think it does too much more than that. Would I tell a person to buy a ticket? No, and I wouldn’t buy a Netflix subscription for this particular offering either, but if you already have one, sure. I mean, I’ve certainly paid for worse.