Holmes & Watson wastes its cast in a brain-dead caper

Holmes & Watson, an American mystery buddy comedy film written and directed by Etan Cohen, stars Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly as the eponymous characters Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson, with Rebecca Hall, Rob Brydon, Steve Coogan, and Ralph Fiennes in supporting roles. The plot follows the famed detective duo as they set out to find the culprit behind a threat at Buckingham Palace.

On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 9 per cent based on 66 reviews, with a weighted average of 2.9/10. The website’s critical consensus reads, “The lowest and vilest alleys in London do not present a more dreadful record of the adventures of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson than does Holmes and Watson.” On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 24 out of 100, based on 22 critics, indicating “generally unfavorable reviews”.

Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of “D+” on an A+ to F scale, while those at PostTrak gave it one out of five stars and a 30pc “definite recommend”. Frank Scheck of The Hollywood Reporter called the film “a Christmas turkey” and wrote, “The overall shoddiness is typical of this feeble sendup that doesn’t even manage to be as funny as the recent Benedict Cumberbatch and Robert Downey Jr. versions.” Ben Kenigsberg of The New York Times found the film dull, writing: “More laughs are all that would have been necessary to prevent the stagnation of Holmes & Watson.

As the movie stands, smuggling in booze to dispel the sense of dull routine could only help.” Ignatiy Vishnevetsky of The A.V. Club called it “a failure on almost every level,” further saying, “it’s pervaded by an air of extreme laziness. It’s cheap and tacky—a bizarrely dated parody of Ritchie’s Holmes (complete with a soundalike score) poisoned with rib-elbowing topical references and puerile gags. It’s the Sherlock Holmes movie with the red ‘Make England Great Again’ hat and the lactating Watson.”