The third film in the Enola Holmes series finds Sherlock Holmes’s gifted sister torn between knot-tying and crime-solving. Enola (Millie Bobby Brown) is on the verge of marrying Tewkesbury (Louis Partridge) in Malta when she hears that Sherlock (Henry Cavill) has been kidnapped.
Enola badly want to marry Tewkesbury, even if it might mean losing her surname, but saving Sherlock is rather more important.
Enola and John Watson (Himesh Patel) team up to crack a case with promising clues as well as misleading leads. The Holmes matriarch Eudoria (Helena Bonham Carter), who is supposedly underground, pops up from time to time, as does Moriarty (Sharon Duncan-Brewster).
The Netflix release follows two previous screen adaptations of Nancy Springer’s popular novels. Both the books and the films boldly place Sherlock’s invented sister at the centre of social movements and political churning.
This time, the target is the British colonial enterprise. There is talk of racism, reparations and revolution that feels like lip service, rather than a genuine effort to address historic wrongs through the prism of a rip-roaring adventure.
The mystery is rather weak too. The creators of the blockbuster Netflix series Adolescence are behind Enola Holmes 3. Writer Jack Thorne and director Philip Barantini neither tinker with an established and successful formula nor add any edgy elements that might make the latest production memorable. The game is afoot, but visibly teetering too.
The 105-minute film is entertaining enough, carried along by its enthusiastic young leads and interestingly cast older actors. Millie Bobby Brown and Louis Partridge make a lovely pair, while Henry Cavill, possibly the studliest Sherlock, sportingly plays second fiddle.
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