There’s something wrong with Enola Holmes, and it’s not just that this staunch, rebellious feminist is getting married to a British lord. That’s where the story begins in “Enola Holmes 3,” with our hero having doubts about her wedding day, running late to the altar and getting chased down by a bandit, riding shotgun in her own carriage, her veil vanishing in the wind. It’s an exciting way to drop into her latest movie but unfortunately, it’s the last moment of genuine fun we’re about to have.
“Enola Holmes 3” stars Millie Bobby Brown as Enola, who over the course of two previous films solved crimes that led directly to British election reform and the rise of unionization. Along the way she fell in love with Lord Tewkesbury (Louis Partridge) and earned the respect of her more famous sibling, Sherlock (Henry Cavill). But her closest relationship was with the audience, breaking the fourth wall repeatedly to reveal her personal feelings and share private jokes.
The third installment finds Enola engaged to be married, closer than ever to Sherlock, and distanced from the rest of us. She rarely shares anything with the audience anymore, only acknowledging our existence a few times, rarely with more than a passing glance. It’s not that Enola Holmes owes us anything, she just seems to have lost what makes her … her. “Enola Holmes 3” lacks the energy, the heft and the personality that made her previous adventures so satisfying.
Enola is in Malta and about to get married when Sherlock is mysteriously abducted. The film wants us to be surprised by who’s responsible, but the Holmes family has only one arch-nemesis, and we already know Moriarty (Sharon Duncan-Brewster) escaped at the end of “Enola Holmes 2.” It’s up to our hero to solve the crime, save Sherlock, decide how she really feels about marriage, and wrap this whole franchise up with a tidy conclusion, all while once again failing to reckon with the questions these movies raise by reimagining Moriarty as a Black woman motivated by real injustices who’s nevertheless portrayed as the living personification of evil. Duncan-Brewster is fabulous in the Moriarty role; it’s the role that comes up short.
The first two “Enola Holmes” films were helmed by Harry Bradbeer, who brought a galloping gait to this franchise. Even when the plots were all bluster, even the runtime felt padded, the earlier movies were fast-paced, effective entertainments. That brisk energy is absent in “Enola Holmes 3,” now directed by Philip Barantini (“Adolescence”) with a bog standard, generic delivery that only occasionally remembers how excitable these movies used to be. The first two “Enola Holmes” movies were appealingly exhausting. The third just feels exhausted.
The adventure takes Holmes into the sordid history of British colonialism, without much enthusiasm, and sidelines all the characters with a direct link to its historical context. (Well, more than usual.) And now that Enola has spent many years solving crimes, often alongside her brother, she no longer has the same inexperience — in her life or her career — that made her distinctive in the first place. Whenever “Enola Holmes 3” tries to bring that inexperience back it rings false. As if the great Enola Holmes needs to be reminded to look beneath the surface of things, a piece of advice her mother imparts like it might actually blow the mind of one of the world’s greatest detectives.
I suppose the comparatively subdued style and storytelling indicates that our protagonist is growing up. If so, that’s no excuse for being boring. Still, it makes the mind wander a bit, and explore the reasons why Enola rarely invites the audience into her headspace anymore. Enola, whose last name is literally “alone” backwards, is a genius who rarely meets her equal. Like Ferris Bueller before her, she needs somebody to recognize her superior intellect and sparkling personality. In the absence of close friends and loving family — or, in Ferris’ case, close friends and loving family who he considers his equal — we weren’t just her audience, we were all she had.
Now she’s got those other things and she doesn’t need us anymore. Good for her, I suppose, but if she’s barely interested in us — and she isn’t, since in the last shot of “Enola Holmes 3” she literally pushes us away — then that probably explains why we’re also losing interest in her. She no longer possesses the qualities that made her stories stand out, and unfortunately neither director Barantini or screenwriter Jack Thorne can come up with compelling replacements, and Millie Bobby Brown hasn’t found any new angles for the character either.
“Enola 3” isn’t a fast-paced thrill ride, it’s a generic continuation, and only likely to satisfy fans who thought this plucky feminist who rebelled against the oppressive political, economic and social systems of the British empire was great … but why wasn’t she married?
