Holmes and Watson (2018)

With the passage of time, comedians must learn to adapt to changing years where new creative jokes must be crafted in order to display their passion. Regardless of whatever backgrounds and years of experience they have, they must be held accountable to strive to evolve their comedic chops. The reason this is worth bringing up is a pair of comedians most known for teaming up in the 2000s, Will Ferrell and John C Reilly, haven't worked in lead roles together since Step Brothers (2008, yes a decade ago) and both have moved in separate directions of quality with their careers (Will's being a downward spiral, while John moved up very well). This brings us to Holmes and Watson, a film directed and written by Etan Cohen (Men in Black 3, Get Hard). The marketing for it looked bad and it received some bad press when Sony tried passing off the distribution rights for it to Netflix after bad test scores but the latter publicly refused. It doesn't help that this was in production hell since its 2008 announcement with Sacha Baron Cohen initially cast in before what we ended up getting. The critical bashing was so bad that apparently that audiences walked out during screenings and have been calling the worst of 2018. I entered the auditorium to verify how much of the hate is warranted and left it extremely frustrated at this horrible movie.

Plot: After deciding to remove his emotions in order to solve mysteries and meeting his subordinate in his childhood, the titular duo must figure out a puzzle in a few days before a threat is carried out against the queen of England. With so many movies that parody the Sherlock Holmes property, there are very minor attempts to mimic a style some are familiar with it (mainly the methodical slowdown approach from the Robert Downey Jr versions). It doesn't take that much time to establish the lead protagonists and the conflict that must be overcome. One more positive to note is that there was some effort in the production design for the environment...but unfortunately there's more dedication put there than in the script, which isn't saying much.

Any of those little positive I've mentioned don't matter that much when the biggest problem that makes this movie terrible is the horrible script. Imagine all of the features from the 2000s Will Ferrell comedies (dumb schlump who strives to accomplish a goal, insert sex jokes, forced slapstick, etc) that are executed to dismal effects when the direction and passionless acting think its good enough to elevate the bland material. The attempts at comedy are scatterbrained from opening with a Hannah Montana quote, having Sherlock's origin having him being bullied at school to deciding to ignore his emotions (including literally sucking in his tears) to become smart, spending 1 minute on a part where the detective vomits when he's at the morgue, and having forced Trump jokes (make England great again and describing the election process in an awkward manner). Nothing is ever focused since it wants to rely on improv that never lands at all and the experience ends up being a waste of time.

Characters: The people to focus on are Sherlock Holmes (Will Ferrell) and John Watson (John C Reilly). Will is easily the worst actor out of the cast where he's rehashing every trick in the book many can recognize with his past work (such as yelling, announcing discoveries or emotions in a higher pitched annoying voice, trying to make his goofing around cute). For someone people claim he's SNL alum and should be good, that makes it worse here because even those professionals know better than to do what he's doing here and it makes him look more desperate to make his career bounce back. If there's any minor hope, it's John trying his absolute best to make his role feel like an actual character. For a man whose talent deserves better and has had a great 2018 in terms of delivering performances in quality films, he's doing what he can to make sure Watson the only salvable good thing to counter Will and the script.

Insert "but they were great in Step Brothers" argument: That was a decade ago back when R rated comedies were still hot enough to get by on their classic cliches before they died out a little for other successes to come out and rejuvenate things. It was a different time for the actors back then and you can tell the passion and enthusiasm was evident in both of them. Even if some of the gags were very hit or miss, it evolved into that classic people still enjoy as well as a nice guilty pleasure. However, a passage of time is very evident in the state of things regarding the director and both actors, which shows for the worse here.

Overall Consensus: Holmes & Watson is a comedic failure that suffers from a horrible script, bad jokes, weak acting, and an unenthusiastic direction. ⭑💻 Runtime: 1 hour 30 minutes PG-13

Reasons to watch it: You like any of the aforementioned actors. You want to hear a kid say "no **** Sherlock" (which can be seen in the trailer).

Reasons to avoid it: You dislike Will Ferrell. You don't want to waste your time on a disposable soulless feature. You are bored with parodies of Sherlock Holmes. You noticed the bad marketing.