[REVIEW] Homes & Watson

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Unsurprisingly, the movie is a load of crap.


From Variety.com ...


Film Review: 'Holmes & Watson'
------------------------------
The idea of Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly as Sherlock Holmes
and Dr. John Watson may be amusing, but the duo's clueless
execution spoils the joke.

Judging by the conspicuous lack of fanfare awaiting "Step
Brothers" co-stars Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly's third
feature pairing, the fact that critics weren't invited, and
the faint odor of horse manure emanating from the theater on
Christmas morning, one doesn't need to be a master detective
to deduce that "Holmes & Watson" is a dud - not that the packed
house for a 9 a.m. opening-day show seemed to mind.

As far as Ferrell and Reilly are concerned, Sir Arthur Conan
Doyle's unstumpable sleuth and the thankless sidekick who
recorded his every exploit are not just a great crime-solving
duo but one of the great bromances of English literature - and
therefore a natural target for the two actors' ongoing
exploration of dysfunctional friendships. The trouble is,
Sherlock Holmes exists so large in audiences' minds already that
the pair's uninspired take feels neither definitive nor
especially fresh - just an off-brand, garden-variety parody.

Is it funny, for instance, to spend an entire movie watching
Ferrell's Holmes try on various hats, knowing that eventually
Reilly, as Watson, is bound to steer him toward his trademark
deerstalker? And what's the point in teasing the elaborate
mental calculations needed to disable a boxing adversary when
that particular device was treated with tongue in cheek nine
short years ago, when Guy Ritchie concocted it for his own
"Sherlock Holmes" reboot? At least in that case, the casting of
Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law as Holmes and Watson felt risky,
whereas in writer-director Etan Cohen's version, the joke begins
and ends with the concept of Ferrell and Reilly as these two
characters.

The film's most inspired scene occurs before either actor appears,
opening with an origin-story flashback to Holmes' boarding school
past: It's elementary where he meets his dear Watson. This is also
where Sherlock learns to suppress his emotions after being
humiliated by a gang of cruel classmates, literally forcing the
tears back up his cheeks.

How many of the world's great minds were motivated by bullies? It
would have been smart to explore what makes Holmes tick (in the
books, he's so often portrayed as a one-dimensional savant), but
that's as far as the movie takes the idea. Instead of further
investigating Holmes' gift for logic as an especially extreme case
of over-compensation, the script settles for feel-good buddy-movie
treacle, suggesting that shutting down his feelings as a child
later causes him to take his closest friend for granted (allowing
Reilly to play a version of the same slighted-bestie dynamic in the
Laurel and Hardy biopic "Stan & Ollie").

While Ferrell and Reilly are riffing on their usual routine,
alternating between slapstick (trying to kill a mosquito before
unleashing a case of killer bees) and silly improv (as in a long
string of faux-19th-century synonyms for "onanism"), Cohen has
assembled an impressive cast of British thespians whose only
requirement appears to be keeping straight faces while the co-stars
cut up. And so the movie squanders Ralph Fiennes as Moriarty, Hugh
Laurie (who played Watson opposite Stephen Fry's Holmes) as
Sherlock's older brother Mycroft, and Steve Coogan as a one-armed
tattoo artist (a colorful full-Cockney creation who very nearly
steals the show).

Had these supporting players actually been permitted to act, it
almost certainly would have upstaged Ferrell's self-conscious
technique of mugging to camera - which feels slightly less odd when
Reilly is there, pretending to be his audience. The two actors have
established a certain chemistry by this point that not only sells
Holmes and Watson's friendship but gives the impression that we're
being allowed in on a private joke. It's as if everyone else -
including the queen of England (Pam Ferris) - is there to stand
around and indulge them while they grandstand for one another's
benefit.

And yet, what would a Sherlock Holmes movie be without a case to
solve? Here, "Get Hard" writer-director Cohen has whipped up a
rather basic one from which to string the comic set-pieces: Someone
has threatened Queen Victoria's life and is committing murders made
to look like the work of Moriarty - or maybe they are, and Holmes
simply doesn't have a clue. This is hardly the first Sherlock Holmes
send-up to suggest the sleuth wasn't as smart as history has led us
to believe, although it may well be the first time that history
itself serves as the satire's principal target.

Woven throughout the movie is a critique of the now-outdated notions
that would have been acceptable at the time, from Holmes' fondness
for cocaine to the sheer incredulity he and Watson display when
confronted with "a woman doctor" in the form of Rebecca Hall (whose
modernity is directly contrasted by scene-stealing companion Lauren
Lapkus, playing to hilarious extremes the misogynist caricature of a
woman too uncouth to think for herself). Add to that a running joke
in which Holmes and Watson are credited with any number of
21st-century inventions - from drunk texting ("the intoxograph") to
selfies - and the movie comes off feeling more like the travails of
two contemporary buffoons at large in Victorian England, which may
also explain the frequent, anachronistic use of hip-hop on the
soundtrack.

If some of the above sounds amusing enough to warrant a look, let the
record show that Ferrell, Reilly, and Cohen each have far more
malodorous credits to their name. Heck, even Sherlock Holmes has
survived worse stinkers. But the characters offer so much more
promise than anyone here chooses to exploit - give Billy Wilder's
"The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes" a look, or sample revisionist
"Without a Clue" for a clever twist - and passing up that opportunity
is a crime graver than any Moriarty threatens to commit.



<https://variety.com/2018/film/reviews/holmes-and-watson-review-will-ferrell-1203095643/>