Enola Holmes 3 review – Netflix’s mystery franchise is losing steam | film

DDespite Netflix’s ever-increasing size and dominance, the streaming device has continued to struggle to achieve its most obvious goal. While viewers may flock there to watch slick dating shows, flashy true crimes, Harlan Coben thrillers and addictive romantic comedies, the platform has yet to be known for creating original movie franchises, the bread and butter of most legacy Hollywood studios, for better or worse.

The problem Netflix often faces is that turning a big-budget bet into a cultural event requires more than just a low-stakes flick at home and a short weekend of chatter. Large numbers may have caught up with franchise starters Red Notice and The Gray Man, but a lack of real long-term interest meant sequels went unfollowed, while its most expensive film ever, Chris Pratt’s The Electric State, sank with both audiences and critics. Which is why last year’s success of KPop Demon Hunters, a veritable all-consuming juggernaut, was such an important win, even if the film technically began its life at Sony. There’s a sequel, of course, coming although there’s always felt like something a little incidental about the first film’s transformation into a pop culture phenomenon, as if no one quite knows what they have on their hands.

Enola Holmes was another film made elsewhere — this time, at Warners — and one of several theatrical shows sold to a streamer during the pandemic (a similar trajectory made Fox’s Fear Street trilogy, to me, the platform’s greatest film series to date). Netflix has proven to be a strong steward of Enola, delivering a sequel that’s arguably only slightly better than the first, and the inevitable third film (the second was another ineligible smash) continues on the same path with returning names in front of and behind the camera. But the journey is already starting to get a bit tiresome, more of the same offering significantly less than what worked in the first place.

What worked was a combination of lively energy, an engaging mystery, and some well-received history and life lessons for her young female audience. There are intermittently successful parts of all three again but not enough to make this one slide in quite the same way, and perhaps a safely passable franchise reaches premature burnout. British playwright Jack Thorne returns as screenwriter, fresh from his teenage success, and brings along the show’s director, Philip Barantini, to replace Fleabag’s Harry Bradbeer. Anyone hoping that Enola would confront the dangers of toxic masculinity or that the film would be a running shot will still be disappointed, however, as Barantini proves to be a safe but somewhat anonymous husband.

It’s time for Enola (Millie Bobby Brown, who again looks very much like someone using Instagram to impress as a 20-year-old Victorian girl) to marry her slightly volatile lover, Tewkesbury (Louis Partridge). But their wedding, held on the island of Malta, is thrown into disarray when Enola discovers that her brother Sherlock (Henry Cavill in glorious exposition mode) has been kidnapped. Cue the magnifying glass.

Thorne once again finds a great way to raise interesting issues without using a heavy hand. The choice of Enola, a resourceful and stubborn young woman, to become someone’s wife is criticized by her older brother, who worries about what this restrictive and sexist institution will do to her, while the island’s ambiguous history and British colonial rule provide what is essentially a youthful adventure with more substance than one might expect. But neither weaves into the plot as gracefully as one might hope, the rough edges are smoothed out too easily, and despite the initial appeal of the setting, the film feels a bit too small to be considered a summer blockbuster, especially when compared to the larger previous two installments, where set pieces have now been kept to a minimum to cut costs. Thorne rightly realizes that Enola is a more memorable character when she’s solving karate-chopping problems, but the mystery is too plodding and simple to really engage us.

The plot necessitates the return of both Helena Bonham Carter as Enola’s mother (she does her job and does it well) and Sharon Duncan Brewster as Moriarty (she does too much even for such a villainous character) but once again falls on the shoulders of Brown, who once again struggles under the weight. There’s never enough natural, easy charm, and the star, like so many precocious child actors before her, can’t figure out how big or small to match her adult reflexes, making something buoyant and breezy seem a lot like hard work.

The film fades out before the 100-minute mark, which is at least shorter than the last two films, which clocked in at two hours, but in a way that feels more due to a lack of new ideas and general enthusiasm from those involved. With the “what if BLANK went on vacation” sequel setup, it really feels like rickety franchise filler, as if the next Enola movie is destined to carry more weight and have a lot more at stake. At this early stage, it might be wise for Netflix to leave it alone.