Prologue:
Enola Holmes takes on her first case as a detective, but to unravel the mystery of a missing girl, she will need help from friends, and her very famous brother, Sherlock Holmes.
IMDB: 6.8
Rotten Tomatoes: 92%
“Reform is not a task to be accomplished, nor a bill that can be passed. Rather it is a constant need for change.”
– Tewkesbury
Plot:
The movie continues from the events of the first movie, ‘Enola Holmes’. Eudoria Holmes (Helena Bonham Carter), the mother of Sherlock and Enola (Millie Bobby Brown), is on a run again, being rebellious and fighting for herself and women’s rights in the world of the male dominant society. On other hand, we see Enola starting her own detective agency after her successful outing we saw in the first movie. Although Enola does not get any recognition for her own as her very famous brother, detective – Sherlock Holmes (Henry Cavill) is too well known for her to get any attention from the same name, ‘Holmes’. Not only just Enola’s name but people also do ask out for her experience as a detective which she does not have in abundance. And when her venture fails, Enola gets a client, a little girl, Bessie Chapman (Serrana Su-Ling Bliss) to find the missing sister of a little girl, Sarah Chapman (Hannah Dodd).
From there, we see Enola pursuing the chase of unraveling the mysteries, and finding Sarah Chapman. As the case of finding Sarah Chapman gets more and more complicated, we see Enola taking the help of her friends and her brother, Sherlock Holmes.
“Sometimes you’ll stumble. Sometimes, you’ll fall. But no matter how lost you feel, if you stay true to yourself, the path will always find you again.”
-Eudoria Holmes
Review:
After the adventures of the first movie, I expected the second installment to get better, but it merely did. Millie Bobby Brown does well enough to portray the role of Enola Holmes, and so does Helena Bonham Carter for the role of Eudoria Holmes. But I feel Henry Cavill as Sherlock Holmes does not exactly fit the role.
Henry Cavill in real life is a person who is known for his disciples and ethics towards his acting, the relationships he has with his co-actors, and we have all seen his fitness in his DC movie- ‘Superman’. And as I have watched the ‘Sherlock’ series, Benedict Cumberbatch portrayed an arrogant personality so well that it is hard for me to accept another actor playing the same role.
As the movie progresses, we see Enola getting into some trouble, solving many of them, and also meeting many new characters and some from the previous movie as well. Her love interest continues with Viscount Tewkesbury after she met with him in her previous ventures. Although we don’t get to see more of her eldest brother, Mycroft Holmes (Sam Claflin).
We get to see more of Sherlock Holmes in action, as he hardly had many scenes in this movie from the previous one, and deservingly so. It would have been a waste of money to have Henry Cavill on the team and not use his potential to the fullest. We see more actions and adventure sequences this time in the movie, and they were beautifully crafted as well. Though the pace of the movie is not good enough and the background music of the movie also lacks to get the viewer more engaged in movie.
At last, the second installment of the Enola Holmes marginally gets better from its first part. But the movie still has pacing issues, along with that it lacks to get the audience more engaged and does not deliver well enough to make the experience more exciting.
From the various different books, shows, and movies about Sherlock Holmes, we get to see his one of the best rivals in the movie, Moriarty. Traditionally, Moriarty has been a white guy but the movie has taken a different step and have changed the race and gender of Moriarty. Mira-Troy Moriarty (Sharon-Duncan Brewster) didn’t get much screen time in the movie but surely was the main antagonist.
“Too many people make it their sole purpose in life to fit into the world around them. This is a mistake.”
-Eudoria Holmes
5 things I liked about Enola Holmes 2:
- Enola Holmes 2 action sequences were much better from the first movie. We see much better action choreography and stunt implementations from the crew and actors.
- The mystery was much more engaging as a viewer this time. To solve the case of finding Sarah Chapman, Enola faced a lot of twists and turns. On the other hand, we see Sherlock searching for ‘Moriarty’ and realize that even his path to solving the mystery interjects with the case of Enola.
- Giving more screen time to ‘The Sherlock Holmes’ improved the movie from the first installment. In the first movie, Sherlock did not have much role to play in the film and went underutilized by the writers and directors of the movie. They did build the hype around Enola’s famous brother, but he hardly had anything to do in the first movie. But not this time, we see Sherlock solving mysteries and also in action helping his cases side-by-side with Enola.
- The connection from the previous movie to the current one was done really well. There were hardly any plot lines missing from the first movie, moving to the second. We see Enola’s mother, Eudoria and her brother, Sherlock again in the movie. Although we don’t have any idea where the eldest brother, Mycroft Holmes is. We see Enola’s love interest, Tewkesbury again with whom Enola’s story continues from there.
- The post-credit scene of the movie really gave a good surprise to Sherlock fans. The only person missing in the movie was Doctor John Watson, one of the well-known accomplices of Sherlock for a long-long time. The post-credit scene confirms that we will be getting to see more of the duo in the third installment of the movie, Enola Holmes 3, or maybe a solo run for Sherlock Holmes in another movie.
“The first mistake a detective makes is to make it about themselves and not the case.”
-Sherlock Holmes
5 things I disliked about Enola Holmes 2:
- Enola Holmes 2 really lacked in the pace of their storytelling. While watching the movie, it feels like it is taking forever the movie to tell us about a certain aspect they want to discuss or inform their viewers about.
- The background music of the movie could have been better. As the movie is set somewhere between the late 19th and early 20th century. The director of the movie could have experimented with some better quality and variety of music. The movie restricts itself to using just particular sets of old English classical music.
- Moriarty had really less role and screen time in the entire movie. Those who have read about the stories of Sherlock or watched his stories in movies or TV Shows, they might know how big of an antagonist Moriarty is. It’s alright that the movie writers took creative liberty and went for a different style of Moriarty, but they could have given us their version of Moriarty better screen time and more role to play in the movie.
- Although we get to see Dr. Watson in the post-credit scene of the movie, but the movie lacks original Sherlock characters that we have seen and read about over the years. Yes, the movie is about Enola Holmes and her journey, but the classic Sherlock characters should have been pre-established and had a better role in the movie.
- The movie feels like it is taking an eternity to end. The movie could have been shortened if it had better pace, but the bad pacing and explaining everything to the viewers made the movie a bit boring and too slow.
“It’s a lesson hard learned. Without power, we women must rely on our wits for our fortune.“
-Miss Mira Troy
Future for Enola Holmes movie series:
In the post-credit scene, we get to see Doctor John Watson (Himesh Patel). Dr. Watson knocks on Sherlock’s door who is looking for a room to stay in as there was a notice outside the house of ‘looking for a room partner’.
So, I guess in the third installment of the movie, we will see the duo of Sherlock-Watson solving cases and mysteries together. Along with Enola Holmes who will try another time to stand up for herself and start another Detective Agency as the sole owner and detective of it.
