Movie Review: Enola Holmes 2 is an Enthralling Mystery!
Several months after the first Enola Holmes movie, Enola (Millie Bobby Brown) is back and finds herself opening up her own detective agency. Desperate to get out of the shadow of her older brother Sherlock (Henry Cavill), Enola can’t get any customers. One day a young girl named Bessie shows up looking for her caretaker Sarah Chapman. They work at a matchstick factory and while several of the matchstick girls initially distrust Enola, she’s soon on the case going undercover at the factory and crashing some of the elitist balls in London.
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Razor-focused on the case, Enola does get herself into some scraps and finds herself under the watchful eye of Detective Grail (a deliciously evil David Thewlis.) She also spends some time with Tewkesbury (Louis Partridge), a newly elected lawmaker, and Sherlock who himself is embroiled in an intense cat-and-mouse game with arch-nemesis Moriarty.
Millie Bobbie Brown is effervescent in anything she does and Enola Holmes 2 is a great project for her acting skills and physical comedy. She breaks the fourth wall at some of the silliest times in the film and she’s just enjoyable to watch on the screen. Enola Holmes 1 had more physical comedy but this film relies on Brown’s facial expressions and chemistry to move the story along.
Enola Holmes 2 works because it doesn’t take itself too seriously. A teen detective is understandably met with skepticism and Enola gets her first “official” investigative job through another child, much to the dismay of her brother Sherlock. The sets are appropriately smoky (after all it’s set during London’s Industrial Revolution) and the costumes are lush.
At over two hours, Enola Holmes 2 feels a bit too long and it felt like at least 15-20 minutes could have been cut towards the end of the film. Still, Millie Bobby Brown was born to play Enola Holmes, and sibling chemistry between her and Henry Cavill’s Sherlock is a definite treat.
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