Review of Holmes & Watson (2018) by Mrmoviebuff — 19 May 2019

'Holmes & Watson' is an annoying and uninspired comedy that completely misuses the reliable talents of Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly. The film focuses on how Dr. John Watson (Reilly) was once contemplating suicide, but stumbles across a clever and mysterious man named Sherlock Holmes (Ferrell), and the two guys seem to get along and hit it off and become a duo.

We see that Holmes and Watson crack many cases and solve many crimes, until they one day let the evil Moriarty (Ralph Fiennes) escape making everyone believe that he is innocent. The film then ponders along with unfunny scenes followed by even more unfunny scenes, we see that the duo are invited to meet the Queen, and discover that there was a murder and that the Queen's life is in potential danger, so the duo get on the case to find out who the culprit could be.

There is no clever moments in this film, I usually admire the sharply funny Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly, whether they are together ('Step Brothers'), or when they're apart. The film, written and directed by Etan Cohen seems to restrain them from doing anything genuinely funny, and instead they are resorted to just screaming to the top of their lungs, talking and talking about unfunny things, or just making faces at each other without any worthy punchline.

It's a largely misconceived comedy that badly tries to squeeze a laugh out of the audience without any use of subtlety and uses an Adam Sandler type approach. Sometimes less is more.