ELEMENTARY FUN
Sherlock Gnomes deliver harmless, but forgettable children’s adventure
In the opening scene of this sequel to 2011’s Gnomeo and Juliet, the conscious garden gnomes try to steal my idea for another punning title. Will their next movie be Game of Gnomes, they ask? Indiana Gnomes? The Gnome Ranger?
Clearly not. Like the first film, Sherlock Gnomes is a parody of a well-known property old enough to be in the public domain. And thus any Part 3 will have no choice but to call itself Gnomer’s Odyssey. You’re welcome.
But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. This innocuous and forgettable children’s film imagines
have are urban settling that moved garden. its into ceramic to The London a new, head characters smaller and gnomes (Michael Caine, Maggie Smith) have decided it’s time to retire and let young Gnomeo and Juliet (James McAvoy, Emily Blunt) take over. But before the transfer of power can take place, the entire pack of them is kidnapped, presumably by the misanthgnomic Moriarty. He’s voiced by British comedian Jamie Demetriou. Sherlock Gnomes and Watson, meanwhile, are given breath by Johnny Depp and Chiwetel Ejiofor, respectively, which puts the good guys up four-nil in Oscar nominations alone.
What follows is a merry chase through London, including Tower Bridge but remarkably few landmarks otherwise. Music is, as in the original, mostly courtesy of executive producer Elton John, while Mary J. Blige gets a random powerhouse number thrown into the movie’s weak middle third. She also provides the voice of Irene, Sherlock’s ex and a doll. (A literal doll: When she serves tea you have to pretend there’s something in your cup.)
The pace is neither as frantic nor the writing as clever as in the first film, and I’m knocking half a star off right here for the screenwriters’ misuse of the word “wherefore.” How could they not know what that word means? There are five of them, and four also worked on Gnomeo and Juliet, for Pete’s sake!
Anyway, the vagaries of Shakespearean English will no doubt sail over the heads of the film’s intended audience, as will the odd Holmesian reference, and the fact that the venerable James Hong provides the voice of a salt shaker, while Ozzy Osbourne plays an ornamental fawn. But the film isn’t bad — just flat and uninspired, with a doublecross that a 10-year-old could see coming. (I brought one to the screening to be sure.)
If you go, just know that you’re funding the potential sequel — which, if The Odyssey is too dated, could be called Madame Gnomery, Tom Gnomes by Henry Fielding or, in a pinch, Frankengnome.