Rejoice, all ye who enjoy being talked at. Millie Bobby Brown returns to frequently turn toward the camera and give us knowing Jim-from-The-Office glances in Enola Holmes 3, the latest in Netflix’s blockbuster-ish movie franchise, based on Nancy Springer’s YA book series. This new entry was an inevitability, considering the numbers the previous two racked up. The first two films entrenched Enola among the streamer’s most popular properties, and Stranger Things breakout Brown as one of Netflix’s most recognizable homegrown talents. Considering how Brown’s other Netflix star vehicles, Damsel and The Electric State, were creative disappointments, her return as Sherlock Holmes’ crime-solving little sister is welcome – but sequels always foster fear of diminishing returns, so perhaps a new director, Philip Barantini (Adolescence), can give the franchise some fresh-squeezed juice. Let’s find out. 

The Gist: Scrappy little Enola Holmes (Brown) is all growed up now. She’s a professional detective just like big brother Sherlock (Henry Cavill), and she’s about to become a lady. That latter bit is a sticking point, because becoming a lady may be unbecoming to someone of her fiercely independent feminist agency. And how is she becoming a lady? By marrying Teweksbury (Louis Partridge), her handsome love interest, who’s now a British Lord. Lord and Lady, Lady and Lord – Enola ain’t so sure about that, nor adopting the name Teweksbury, as in Lady Enola Teweksbury of some -shire or -ington of some kind. Eww? 

Enola’s dithering to us-slash-herself over all this, looking quite lovely in her wedding dress, on her wedding day, moments after the wedding should’ve started. All the guests are waiting to witness the wedding. Tewkesbury is growing impatient to get this wedding going, perhaps so they can get to the wedding night, although a romantic-bliss montage implies that they absolutely had to have Done It before the wedding. The moment just has those vibes. And Enola, bless her heart, has little respect for traditional etiquette. 

Bottom line, Enola is in love, so she decides to go through with it. She hops in a carriage and races to the wedding site until a masked man on horseback finds her ditching the train and veil to stand atop the carriage with a shotgun – except it’s Dr. Watson (Himesh Patel) chasing her down to give her bad news: Sherlock is missing. Kidnapped. Ladyship delayed. Which means the wedding is too, of course. Maybe not a terrible thing on that end but the missing-Sherlock thing is absolutely a terrible thing. Sherlock once expressed concern that marriage might be a bridge too far for an independent spirit like Enola, and while he may be a grumpy stoic, he may have a point. Good detectives are ruled by logic and reason. But Enola is a typical light-feminist movie protagonist in the sense that she wants it all – true love, a career, plenty of freedom to engage with us in direct address in an annoyingly cutesy manner that’s maybe starting to rub us the wrong way, and all that.

Anyway. This is about when the plot becomes a coagulation of various whatnot: The establishment of the setting, Malta, so they can have a destination wedding and introduce ideas about the odiousness of British colonization. The tension between Enola and The Tewks, although he begins to show a bit of detective acumen, which should find our erstwhile protag turned on—not that the PG-13-ness of it all will allow much of that. The additional kidnapping of Tewks’ mother. The inevitable incorporation of Enola’s wacky mother, Eudoria (Helena Bonham Carter) into the plot. The also-inevitable appearance of Enola’s arch enemy Moriarty (Sharon Duncan-Brewster). The introduction of Mizzi (Joe Azzopardi), a Maltese political reformist whose anti-colonialist spiel gives him some I am Inigo Montoya you killed my father etc. etc. vibes. Chases will occur, fights will be fought, mysteries will be fussed over, but will Sherlock be rescued? And will we care? Yeah, maybe. 

What Movies Will It Remind You Of? The Enola Holmes-es are essentially Nancy Drew as hosted by Ferris Bueller.

Performance Worth Watching: Are we ever not entertained by Helena Bonham Carter playing a nutty character who probably has twigs, old gum and sticks of dynamite tangled in her hair?

Sex And Skin: None, save for a very slightly sensual scene where Enola and Tewkesbury take a dip in the ocean together.

Our Take: Enola Holmes 3 is aggressively Just Fine, and I can muster no greater superlatives for it. The charm of the first two films has mostly worn off, possibly because they were enjoyable in the moment, but ultimately not at all memorable, a fact exemplified by Brown’s upbeat-yet-lightweight performances. She’s showing limits to her charisma, at least in regards to this character, who’s plucky and endearing, but might just need a screenwriter who can put her in something besides formulaic mystery plots heavily calculated to balance all the romance, intrigue and action, as demanded by marketing consultants and focusing groups. I shrug in its general direction.

The most annoying component of this movie is its faux-ambition, sprinkling in capital-T Themes to give the story a bit more muscle for younger audiences who may not understand the ickiness of privilege, colonization and racism. A noble gesture, sure, bordering on virtue signaling, but admirable. But there’s little ambition elsewhere, case in point, a moment when Enola is part of a super-snoop team with The Tewks, Mizzi, Eudoria and Watson, a true meeting of the minds that yields nothing of interest, an opportunity for some welcome third-act pizzazz squandered. 

Otherwise, we get Enola poking around for clues in her wedding dress, attempting to decipher notebooks written in code, farting around in plastic Goonies caves, and listening to the inevitably cryptic final words of dying people. The movie makes its way, workmanlike, through a somewhat listless narrative to a drawn-out conclusion. Bonham Carter drops in just in the nick, to goose the movie out of complacency, and Duncan-Brewster attempts the same by gnashing her teeth, oh-so-villainous. Cavill is pretty much in extended-cameo mode, leaving him plenty of time to make eight Guy Ritchie films. 

Enola 3 is also flatter in tone than its predecessors. Its stabs at comedy are ineffective (some of these bits should be followed by canned fart noises), and its romantic flourishes are tentative, likely out of fear that things might get too sexy for 11-year-olds in the audience. The franchise has succumbed to a case of Netflix-ism that wasn’t quite present in the earlier films, in the sense that it doesn’t consistently compel us to put our full attention on it, no matter how many times Brown looks us in the eye and tries to Bueller us out of our indifference.

Our Call: Yep: diminishing returns, and somewhat significant ones this time around. SKIP IT.

John Serba is a freelance film critic from Grand Rapids, Michigan. Werner Herzog hugged him once.