Holmes & Watson review – elementary homophobic grossout comedy
This murky Sherlock tale is the nadir of Conan Doyle adaptations
Puerile, imbecilic and imbued with the kind of casual 1970s sitcom homophobia that reads all male friendships as somehow suspect, this slack-jawed grossout comedy represents the nadir of Conan Doyle adaptations. The Baskerville hound could have probably sicked up a more coherent plot, and the bare minimum performances from Will Ferrell and John C Reilly, as Holmes and Watson respectively, are desultory and insulting to the audience. There’s a tittering dismissal of the female characters, in particular poor Kelly Macdonald, an actor I would gladly watch in pretty much anything, within reason. And while the costumes are jaunty enough, the look of the film is murky and bilious, as if it got dropped into the Victorian sewer system at some point during production.