![]() Young Sherlock Holmes has no immediate trend energy, returning after the character has been flogged for years in variations on television. There’s a part of me that believes the only reason Paramount is giving love to the latter is to jump on hype and confusion surrounding HBO’s hit series House of the Dragon. This likely explains why the film has reappeared from Paramount Home Video as a Bluray release, not a new 4K edition, unlike another adventure suffering similar responses, 1981’s Dragonslayer, slated for late-March. Critics were mildly impressed to mildly annoyed with it, and while the film found an audience on home video, the fandom surrounding it remains modest to this day. Nonetheless, it underperformed, and plans to expand into a long series of adventures started and ended with one. ![]() How could it possibly go so wrong? Directed by Barry Levinson, written by Chris Columbus ( Gremlins, Home Alone, Harry Potter), produced by Steven Spielberg’s Amblin Entertainment, featuring a time-tested character, and awash with groundbreaking special effects from Industrial Light and Magic, the movie is essentially a crowd of ringers cracking bats and hitting homers. “Enola Holmes 2” premieres November 4 on Netflix.Everything was right for Young Sherlock Holmes (1985). Either way, the roots of the main character’s name notwithstanding, it’s unlikely Netflix will want to leave Enola alone for long. In that sense, the matchstick analogy proves especially apt, since Brown’s exuberant take feels like just the spark that the franchise needed. Sherlock Holmes has gone through numerous iterations through the years, evidence of the character’s durability while underscoring how difficult it is to bring much new to Baker Street. ![]() The film fares better when Enola is using her wits, not her fists, “seeing” events in a kind of animation that nicely illustrates her well-honed powers of perception. “Enola Holmes 2” contains a considerable amount of action – a bit too much, frankly, given the more cerebral aspects of the character. Indeed, when Enola attends a lavish ball that reunites her with the dashing and wealthy Tewkesbury (Louis Partridge), it’s hard not to think that as busy as her dance card is likely to become, the streaming service should book her as often as her college-bound schedule will allow. The not-so-secret ingredient remains Brown (who also produces these films), the “Stranger Things” star who Netflix has wisely realized is a major asset. The cryptic clues, moreover, suggest the work of a master criminal, giving the sleuth an adversary worth of his intellect.Īgain directed by Harry Bradbeer and written by Jack Thorne, this “Enola Holmes” doesn’t deviate from the winning formula derived from the books, and Enola continues to regularly break the fourth wall to share asides and witticisms with the audience, interrupting an early sequence to say, “Perhaps I should explain.” Happily, said brother, the renowned Sherlock Holmes ( Henry Cavill) at a more youthful and physically fit phase of his life, is on a confounding case of his own, which will eventually collide with the one that Enola is pursuing. ![]() The point of entry involves one of them going missing, making the teenage detective the logical person to investigate, after the frustration of dealing with adults put off by her youth, one of whom asks, “Might your brother be free?” “Some of what follows is true,” the on-air script notes at the outset, as Enola (Brown) – Sherlock’s very independent sister – takes up the cause of young girls working in a matchstick factory who are inexplicably falling ill. Throw in fact-based underpinnings about horrid working conditions during the time and you have the makings for a very polished sequel – one that makes the whole thing look elementary, and a whole lot of fun. The game is afoot (again) in “Enola Holmes 2,” a wonderful showcase for Millie Bobby Brown that this time manages to work the character’s famous brother, Sherlock, more organically into the mix.
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