'Holmes & Watson' Review - An Utter Disappointment!

It is fair to say that when the first trailers dropped for Holmes & Watson there was a genuine feeling of excitement - a reunion of comedy legends Will Farrell and John C Reilly a decade after the undeniable success of Step Brothers, and the early clips teased more of their signature style of comedy that have made previous endeavours so successful. Couple this with a plethora of massively experienced British actors in the supporting cast (we are looking at you Ralph Fiennes) and it would be fair to say expectations of the quality of this tongue-in-cheek comedy were pretty high.

If you saw and enjoyed the trailers (as I did) you may be tempted to go and see the film despite the widespread criticism it has subsequently received across social media (as I was). Instead I suggest you simply head on over to Netflix (other streaming services are available) in the warm and dry and watch Step Brothers again... everything funny in Holmes & Watson was included in the 2 minutes 25 second trailer!

Watching this film in full was honestly a painful experience. The funny moments mentioned above were for the most part sandwiched between minutes and minutes of tedious and half-hearted attempts at humour. Personally I am quite happy to endure and in some cases even enjoy films labelled as "bad" as long the jokes are funny; sadly there was no such escape for me in this film and I found myself checking my watch almost as soon as the film came on, praying for the end so I could go and get on with my life.  Successful comedies are consistent in their humour and here in lies the problem; it felt like Holmes & Watson didn't know what it was trying to be. The film seemed to flick between trying to stand up on its own two feet as a comedic performance akin to their previous works, and a parody of the Guy Ritchie interpretations (specific focus here on whenever Sherlock would mentally try to"calculate" the outcome of situations in slow motion just like Robert Downey Jr, only to fail miserably and rather predictably each time). Had it stuck to one of these two approaches it may have salvaged a small degree of critical acclaim but instead succeeded only in creating the feeling that this was a number of attempts at the same concept poorly stitched together in the editing room.

The huge success of the BBC's iteration of the character probably also counted against the team on this project. Whilst you could argue these are different genres altogether, Stephen Moffat's efforts bought the character into the modern world (literally) and succeeded in making us laugh despite the dark tone and nail biting suspense. Subsequently Holmes and Watson feels like a step back for the character; perhaps if this film had been made and released ten years ago we may be talking very differently about it.

It is also clear that one of the writers or perhaps even Farrell or Reilly themselves saw this film as a fantastic opportunity to voice their political opinions. The film was littered with poorly presented gags and references to the apparent failings of the Trump administration, and whilst that may prove popular with our friends across the pond it felt inappropriate and unnecessary to a British public largely uninterested in making America great again. Perhaps next time we need more Brexit jokes?

Unfortunately in films like these there are no amazing special effects or inspiring soundtracks to cling onto, it really is all about the quality of writing which on this occasion was just not good enough. As a fan of Step Brothers and of the Farrell / Reilly duo I would love to have something positive to say about this but there just isn't anything. I saw this in a sell-out cinema the day after release and whilst I did not experience any of the "mass walk outs" the media have been posting about, I can say hand on heart there was not a single audible laugh heard throughout.

What did you think of the film? Do you agree with the widespread criticism or did you actually find the film enjoyable? Let me know in the comments below, thanks for reading!