Review of Enola Holmes 3, directed by Philip Barantini

If you’re new here, and stumbled upon this blog through the mythical powers of the Internet, welcome! I know a lot of visitors to my website are people who randomly come upon this website through search engines like Google, but I also do have a lot of visitors who come back. Regardless: my name is Ashley, and I started this blog in order to keep track of everything I’m coming across in the world.

I feel like a lot of my blog introductions, especially when it comes to movies, have been lamenting on the fact I don’t have a ton of time lately. I used to work as a film critic (which, in fact, was so incredibly underpaid that I now make more off of this blog’s display ads than I ever did publishing anywhere else), and then when I was in graduate school I was writing a lot about film, so I used to watch so many movies.

But now I work an 8-5, come home, and then doom scroll my evenings away instead of watching the movies I used to love so dearly. And recently I realized I want to stop doing that, so I’ve set limits on my phone and am fully prepared to sit back and watch more movies and read more books in order to feed my brain.

Sometimes that means just watching a fun movie instead of something super serious. I know after graduate school I was chasing the high of watching high art and quote-on-quote intellectual movies, but nowadays I just want to open up Netflix after work and see a movie that I’ll have fun with.

And that’s actually how I ended up watching Enola Holmes 3. I’ve seen the other two movies (the reviews are also on my blog), so it just made sense to sit down and watch the third movie while I was bored one night.

Let’s get into the review!

After Sherlock Holmes is kidnapped, Enola Holmes desperately tries to find her brother—with some major consequences.

This movie takes place some time after the second movie, and Enola and Tewkesbury are getting married. Their wedding destination? Malta. This is because Tewkesbruy’s father served in Malta during the British occupation of the island, and his mother insists that they should have it there because of that fact.

They arrive on the island in time for the wedding, but Sherlock tells Enola that she shouldn’t get married. He thinks that if she becomes a wife, she no longer can serve as a detective. There’s some truth in that, but Enola tells him that she can be both at the same time. But then Sherlock disappears not long after that conversation.

Enola overhears a dying soldier say the name “Rathe,” then Enola goes into her brother’s room.S he finds an expensive dress in there, then goes searching for the professor with that name. Once she finds her, though, the woman is shot. As she lays dying, she tells Enola that a woman will kill her, then Enola loses the trail of the assassin.

As this is happening she misses her own wedding, leading to some major friction between Enola and Tewkesbury. Enola continues to dig deeper and learns that Rathe, and the person the woman warned her about, is Professor Moriarty. She escaped from prison. We also discover Sherlock is being held hostage with Tewkesbury’s mother, who disappeared during a fire in the villa.

When Enola confronts Moriarty, she explains that she is the reason why the wedding is being held here. She wanted to lure Enola in, then took Sherlock to get to this moment. Enola realize she can’t do this alone, then teams up with Dr. John Watson and a Maltese freedom fighter named Mikiel.

Together, they find a new conspiracy. Turns out the British stole a ton of Afghan gold and took it to Malta, which is something Tewkesbury’s father was involved with. Everyone involved has been covering this up for decades, and with the help of clues left behind by Sherlock, Enola finds the treasure in a cave. As she goes to get it, Moriarty’s hired soldiers surround them.

Mikiel arrives with Tewkesbury and other reinforcements, so Enola grabs the gold and runs. She follows Moriarty and finds out where her captives are, and a fight breaks out. Sherlock, once freed, wants to kill her, but Enola tells him not to and they arrest her.

After this, the soldiers involved with stealing the gold are all arrested. Enola and Sherlock make sure that the gold is returned to Afghanistan, while Mikiel believes this campaign will help Malta gain its indepndence.

Sherlock finally apologizes to Enola for what he said at the beginning of the movie about her marriage. Tewkesbury renounces his title and takes up his actual name, Earnest, while Enola keeps her name. They marry at the end of the movie, with Enola’s mother officiating the ceremony.

Overall Thoughts

While I really liked this movie tackling colonial themes and how empires end up extracting and stealing from the communities they occupy, something about this movie was missing power for me. There’s something that it needs to elevate it to the next level. The pacing and dialogue are all fine, but I thought this was a tiny bit more lackluster than its predecessors.

I wanted to like this movie more, but I think that it doesn’t have much to say beyond those new themes. I do like the idea of Enola’s identity as a wife and detective being called into question, especially considering the period, but I just wanted more from this. It felt like these callouts just kind of existed in some ways.

I say watch this one if you’re interested, but if not maybe put it on the backburner. I feel like I’m glad I watched it, but this is one of those movies I might not come back to.

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