Holmes & Watson

Watch Movies TV -***DISCLAIMER*** The following review is entirely my opinion. If you comment (which I encourage you to do) be respectful. If you don't agree with my opinion (or other commenters), that's fine. To each their own. These reviews are not meant to be statements of facts or endorsements, I am just sharing my opinions and my perspective when watching the film and is not meant to reflect how these films should be viewed. Finally, the reviews are given on a scale of 0-5. 0, of course, being unwatchable. 1, being terrible. 2, being not great. 3, being okay. 4, being great and 5, being epic! And if you enjoy these reviews feel free to share them and follow the blog or follow me on Twitter (@RevRonster) for links to my reviews and the occasional live-Tweet session of the movie I'm watching! A case where the trailer is better than the film.

Holmes & Watson – 2 out of 5

I love Will Ferrell.  I love John C. Reilly.  I love the combination of the two and when I heard they were teaming up again for a new comedy I was pushing all my chips to the center of the table and said I was all-in.  Sadly, I was playing poker when I got the news and wasn’t metaphorically pushing chips into a metaphoric table.  I lost badly that day and it caused my wife to leave me and take the kids.  It got even worse when I realized I didn’t even know I was a father and a husband.  To make matters worse, I decided to sit down and watch Holmes & Watson in order to try and alleviate some of my emotional pain and that didn’t help because it wasn’t a very good movie.  This was all a lie because I didn’t hear about the film and see it in the same day but heard about it, saw the initial trailer months later (which I really dug and laughed out loud to) and then recently saw it.  The only thing I didn’t lie about just now was the fact I didn’t enjoy Holmes & Watson.  I wanted to…but it just didn’t do it for me.

Before this I watched Stan & Ollie and thought it would be fun to watch another
movie with John C. Reilly and then Steve Coogan showed up.

Sherlock Holmes (Ferrell) is the greatest detective to ever live and he and his trusted partner Dr. John Watson (John C. Reilly) are quickly on their way to legendary status in England.  However, after a surprise birthday party is thrown for Holmes, a message is sent from Professor James Moriarty (Ralph Fiennes) that the Queen is going to die in 4 days.  Now Holmes must use his wit and his intelligence to save the Queen and bring Moriarty to justice.

Well, at the very least, Fiennes feels like the perfect choice for a Moriarty.

Like I said, I really wanted to like Holmes & Watson due to the fact I enjoy the other comedic adventures from Ferrell and Reilly.  Additionally, the trailer genuinely made me laugh and the premise isn’t a bad idea.  Sadly, the film was pretty disappointing as a lot of the jokes and gags were duds.  I know comedy is very subjective but the humor in this one just wasn’t doing it for me.

Since this was a flop, can we try a comedy where Ferrell is doing his Goulet?

One highlight I found for the film was Hugh Laurie
playing Mycroft.

I won’t make the argument that the film was completely devoid of me laughing because it wasn’t.  There were plenty of gags that I really enjoyed and found very funny.  However, the majority of the time I found the humor to be trying too hard.  The longer a gag would go the more cringe-worthy it became; most of the time it was the smaller gags that had me chuckling.  However, there were even character elements that just didn’t come off funny.  For example, Lauren Lapkus stars as a feral woman who is an assistant to the character Grace Hart (played by Rebecca Hall).  Hart is a doctor and the love interest of Watson but the feral assistant just didn’t make much sense to me and it resulted in a lot of sequences that felt like it was forcing the idea that a feral woman that Holmes finds attractive is inherently funny and it just resulted in me just wincing and staring in utter confusion at my TV screen.

I found myself wondering if they found this whole thing funny on set.

One thing I really did enjoy about the film is the camaraderie between Ferrell and Reilly.  Sure, the film isn’t great as it has a weak story, some awkward characters and even more awkward humor but Ferrell and Reilly are great together and there’s no denying their chemistry.  Even when the material wasn’t great, sequences with these two I found enjoyable because I could feel that they truly do enjoy working together.  Due to this, despite the film’s shortcomings, there were moments of charm that I enjoyed about this one.

It's customary for me to mention that I want John C. Reilly to play P.T. Barnum
in a biopic about the man whenever I review a film with Reilly.

I really wanted to enjoy Holmes & Watson but ultimately found it to be a pretty weak and disappointing comedy.  There are some jokes and gags I admit were funny and I still find Ferrell and Reilly to be a charming and fun duo but there were too many misses in this one for me to enjoy the overall experience.