SO you used to play guitar for the aunts and uncles at family BBQs with the nice wool socks grandma knitted for you, and then someone went and made you famous with a song like nothing anyone has ever heard and the whole friggin planet wants more. Of your socks too. Whaddaya do? How do you keep the pendulum swinging, how do you keep the iron hot to beat it just the right shape? You go with a cover, a song everyone knows, and you add your personal little twist. Hey, it worked for the Beatles, Elton John, even Johnny Cash made a ton of ...cash, late in life, with a career resurrection consisting of nothing but covers.
God only knows if Netflix themselves knew that Stranger Things would be a global phenomenon, and one of the most iconic TV shows of all time despite having only released 3 seasons so far. But from Millie Bobby Brown, the linchpin of the whole show, big things are being expected. First she went with the sequel to the reboot of an American crack at Godzilla, which.... had its moments... but overall was a not exactly Jurassic Park. She needed a another hit, and fast. I gotta admit I was torn between rolling my eyes at the lazyness, and tipping my hat at the bravery, that her second attempt to De-Eleven herself would be a feminist-twisted riff on the world's greatest detective... who doesn't dress like a bat.
I mean seriously, everybody and their Chevy has done a 'twist' on Sherlock Holmes; Sir Arthur's private eye has been on the screens for pretty much as long as screens have existed, and many a name who put their stamp on it are synonymous with legend. Basil Rathbone, Nicol Williamson, Stewart Granger, Orson Welles, Charlton Heston, John Cleese, Micheal Caine, Christopher Plummer, Ian McKellen, Christopher Lee, even Max-friggin-Headroom himself Matt Frewer! And since everything old is new again, we've recently seen him as a recovering Junkie in NYC, an iPhone-addicted sociopath who lives with Bilbo the Hobbit, and a MMA-practitioning playboy who sometimes hangs with a space raccoon.
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| Technically it's not a gun, so Checkov won't mind they introduced a bow that will NEVER be used. |
So yeah, it's both lazy to go with a -royalty free- literary property that even Hellen Keller has heard of, and ballsy to try and bring an angle new to something that's been rebooted more times than my Acer computer. And it's especially so for young Millie who also produces the whole thing, which smells of franchise. The problem is after my fifth trip to the refill station while watching Enola Holmes, I realized -sitck and stones can hurt my bones...- I don't wanna watch Eleven be a tween Holmesette. I wanna see The Witcher rip Moriarty's head off with with a grunt.
Mind you, the casting is brilliant. Brown is absolutely charming as the rising sleuth, a trait she thankfully shares with her on-screen brother Henry Cavill who wisely chose to emulate the softly-smiling portrayal of Sir Christopher Plummer in his oh-too-short appearance as the master deductor. But the young lady, despite her abundant energy, is still young. She still needs a director with the moxy to let her know when she sucks -and sadly she does in various moments- as well as a screenwriter who will provide depth for her to plunge in. Here though the focus is clear: decors and period costumes, let the rest take care of itself. And an ancestral 'automobile' that even Jeremy Clarkson would acquaint to science fiction from its sheer ability to... function.
Rounding the cast are Fiona Shaw, whom directors often mistake for a walking pastiche and not the incredibly versatile -and quite frankly gorgeous- woman she is (watch My Left Foot and explain to me why she keeps being cast as a Victorian Karen) , Sam Claffin who buries his chiseled good looks in the most inept Mycroft ever staged, and Helena Bonham Carter who still can't get someone to remember she once stood up to Tyler Durden. Truth be told all I know of Mama Holmes is that she is to blame for her sons' brains and demeanor, but I do know Mycroft is pushover nowhere but in Sherlock's mind.
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| "it's Levi-OH-sah!" |
In their attempt to bring about a new breed of Holmes, Netflix delivered a family movie that somehow will satisfy very few in any given family. Again the cast is charming and the costumes oh-so delightful, but try as she might to emulate Ferris Bueller, Enola Holmes is not the Walrus. The real bone I need to pick though is that nothing really grates me, no clear failure sends me flying in a rant demanding more than a few swig of the whatever non-alcoholic beverage I pretend to be hot for this week to keep my 17-year sobriety streak unbroken. The young starlet clearly needs directions, the screenwriter clearly needs to read Doyle, and the viewer clearly needs better popcorn, but otherwise no real fault could explain why I was left so apathetic to this latest approach to the source material.
The one strength of the piece, as well as it's greatest heartache, is seeing what an instantly-endearing and mesmerizing performance Henry Cavill gives as the consulting detective. Never do we feel in his stance the burden of refreshing a character with nothing fresh left to offer, only do we mourn that his role is barely enough to adorn the poster. Where Netflix succeeded the most with this movie, which feels made-for-TV as much as any Netflix film not directed by Scorcese, is in selling us a Sherlock franchise where the erstwhile Superman is the star, rather than relying on the centerpiece of the streamer's best series so far. I love you Bobby, but if I don't get The Clark Kent of the Baskervilles soon Ima be unhappy.
Still, it was a nice way to kill a quiet Thursday nite.
3 Burps out of 5.
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