Holmes & Watson

*WARNING THERE MAY BE SPOILERS*

seen 1/8/19 

This was a movie, that from the trailer, I knew wasn’t going to be the greatest thing ever but I went to see it because I’ve been a fan of previous Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly comedies. After waiting about a week from seeing the movie to writing this, I think I finally decided my thoughts on it. 

Holmes and Watson is far from a perfect movie. There are many “cringe it’s so bad” moments and moments that are uncomfortable for too long. I think the biggest problem this movie had is that it was unsure of what kind of comedy it wanted to be. There were too many different styles of comedies with in this that overall never really worked together. In one scene, the movie would go from a quick cut of a character wearing one ridiculous hat to another and then it would stick a joke in there of something relevant to the news of today (I don’t have a problem with poking fun at the news of today but how funny will that be to someone 10 years from now?). Immediately the movie then shifts gears to a slapstick kind of comedy of the 2 main characters smacking each other in the face and such, to then a spoof on the RDJ Sherlock movies where Sherlock calculates in his mind what he will do next in the situation he finds himself in. It makes for strange pacing within just one scene, and things like this happen multiple times in the movie. 

Now while some of those scenes were odd and uncomfortable and yes at times just bad, I will admit, I laughed. I ended up laughing a lot through out this movie. Sometimes because I just couldn’t believe how stupid something was or at times because I legitimately thought something was funny. The funniest thing to me, and also my favorite scene of the movie, was this musical sequence that caught me totally off guard and was just ridiculous. Could the movie have done without it, yeah probably, but I’m sure glad it was there. 

Something that worked within this, at least for me, was the relationship between the 2 main characters. When you’re movie is called “Holmes & Watson” you should make me care about at least those characters. I was a little worried about this at the beginning of the movie, it seemed like their friendship was just forced upon them. But by the end of the movie their relationship / friendship is the driving force of the plot. 

Overall I came out of this movie entertained. That to me is the bare minimum of what I want out of a movie. I think this movie will end up being very forgettable to most. There will be many other movies I go to first before I ever rewatch this one. But for a movie going experience I can at least say I enjoyed my time watching this.