Enola Holmes 3, 2026.
Directed by Phillip Barantini.
Starring Millie Bobby Brown, Louis Partridge, Himesh Patel, Sharon Duncan-Brewster, Henry Cavill, Helena Bonham Carter, Joe Azzopardi, Bern Collaço, Susan Wokoma, Jason Watkins, Peter Winfield, and Mike Parish.
SYNOPSIS:
Detective Enola Holmes heads to Malta, where her aspirations merge in her most complex and dangerous case yet.
One would be forgiven for not paying close attention to the directing/writing team behind Netflix’s Enola Holmes movie series, which is not a disparaging comment but rather an acknowledgment that it doesn’t exactly boast household names. While watching Enola Holmes 3, though, it’s transparent that the reins have been handed over to another director, as this entry mostly comes across as a flat, wedding-centric side story with a mystery that exists out of obligation, stuffed with returning character cameos rather than delivering compelling suspense and brain-teasing.
For a film with narration that confidently uses Millie Bobby Brown’s eponymous detective as a mouthpiece to assert that all good movies either begin or end with a wedding (which is already a confounding statement as a large number of movies, good and bad, have nothing to do with marriage at all), it sure doesn’t deliver on that proclamation or live up to the quality of the first two movies.
With Phillip Barantini taking over those directorial duties (Jack Thorne remains on board as the screenwriter, inspired Nancy Springer’s novels), nearly everything about Enola Holmes 3 comes across as everyone involved fulfilling a contract, sometimes appearing for brief moments before being sidelined or showing up randomly, inside a narrative that’s not engaging with its central dilemma of whether or not marriage is right for the young detective who has come into her own. She is now essentially on equal footing in terms of skill alongside her brother Sherlock (once again played by Henry Cavill, albeit with such short cumulative screentime that one would assume there were scheduling conflicts or some other obstacle), more focused on assisting the downtrodden and addressing social issues rather than high society.
Mystery and mischief break out during a destination wedding in Malta to tie the knot between Enola and her upper-class House of Lords boyfriend, Tewkesbury (Louis Partridge). Naturally, getting cold feet given the realities of Victorian-era gender roles and not wanting to lose herself or her detective agency to married life, Enola weighs the decision and even begins to run late for the ceremony.
Far more interesting than anything else in the film is a subplot involving a Maltese man named Mikiel Mizzi (Joe Azzopardi, who, for whatever reason, has his character and performance reduced to a punchline of repeating his name over and over again whenever introducing himself) with a justifiable axe to grind against the presence of the British throwing their weight around. This also ties in to the central mystery, which involves the kidnapping of Sherlock Holmes in Malta, some other shady invited guests, with a couple of them going missing or winding up dead themselves, without grace or substance.
Depending on how astutely one engages with the opening sequence or even takes a gander at the cast list, there aren’t necessarily any satisfying surprises in the whodunit department, which is criminal for a movie in this genre. As mentioned, at times it’s simply throwing out characters from the past two films, hoping that something resembling a greatest-hits compilation of characters also doubles as compelling plot twists. The fact that it does this while further pushing anything related to Malta’s and Mikiel’s struggles almost becomes borderline insulting. If all one wishes to do is merely watch these characters interact again, centered on a wedding that may or may not play out by the end, it might suffice, since the performances and casting remain strong, but everything else that made the series a delightfully sneaky surprise in a sad landscape of forgettable streaming content is missing.
The fourth-wall breaking from Enola Holmes is significantly cut down on, there are less visual flourishes (the expensive Netflix money is still on display though, making for the occasional gorgeous travelogue site), the story has almost nothing to say about Victorian-era marriage or its ongoing conflict in Malta at the center, and the writing itself regarding the detective putting together the pieces and breaking the case open isn’t nearly as sharp, which is the most inexplicable part of this, considering screenwriting duties haven’t changed.
That’s also not to say everything here is outright bad or not entertaining to watch unfold, but rather a considerable, indisputable step down from the previous two installments. There is some initial promise to the case with the kidnapping of Sherlock Holmes, only to be weakened by letdown reveals and bland storytelling. Millie Bobby Brown owns this role, so this is still moderately entertaining, but the shift in directors results in less flashiness, wit, and style, and a decline in quality is evident. Aside from that, Enola Holmes 3 has the odd aura of an unnecessary epilogue or a 2.5.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★
Robert Kojder
