In Review: Enola Holmes 3 (Netflix)

Synopsis: Detective Enola Holmes heads to Malta, where her aspirations merge in her most complex and dangerous case yet.

The Story

Enola Holmes 3 begins with a wedding that is supposed to be taking place in Malta. However, Enola has a case of cold feet and is dragging her heels about turning up to marry Lord Tewkesbury. Eventually she comes to her senses and jumps into a coach, ordering the driver to go hell for leather to the church. However, the journey takes an unexpected turn when Dr. John Watson begins pursuing them with his face covered, looking more like a highwayman than a doctor. Enola very nearly shoots him before bringing the coach to a halt. Watson then informs her that her brother, Sherlock Holmes, has gone missing, and so the mystery begins.

As the plot unfolds, we learn that Sherlock has been kidnapped by Moriarty, who has also abducted Lady Tewkesbury as part of a deadly game of double jeopardy. Moriarty is searching for a cache of gold that Sherlock apparently knows about, having previously told Enola it was little more than a myth surrounding a cave in Malta near where the Holmes family once stayed. From there, the story lurches through a series of misadventures and increasingly improbable coincidences before Enola eventually pieces everything together and rescues her brother.

Acting

Millie Bobby Brown is solid as always in the role of Enola Holmes and has very much become the character over the course of all three films. Henry Cavill returns as Sherlock Holmes and, as always, just about gets away with it by the skin of his teeth. Helena Bonham Carter is back as the delightfully bonkers Eudoria Holmes, while Sharon Duncan-Brewster absolutely owns the role of Moriarty and gets some truly awesome fight scenes as Enola and Moriarty battle it out.

Overall

To my mind, this is the weakest entry in the Enola Holmes film series, which is a shame because all of the actors do their absolute best to carry it. Even Henry Cavill, who, as I’ve said in my previous reviews, is not a particularly convincing Sherlock Holmes, works well enough here because Sherlock is not the main protagonist.

The mystery itself felt rather straightforward. The biggest stumbling block was the coded notebook Sherlock leaves behind for Enola to decipher, but even that is solved fairly quickly. From there, the resolution comes through a series of convenient coincidences as more characters from the previous films enter the story.

If anything, I found this instalment quite a chore to watch and caught myself checking my watch fairly frequently, which is never a good sign. It simply didn’t hold my attention in the way the previous two films did, and everything resolves a little too neatly for my liking.