Sherlock Gnomes is neither better nor worse than you’d expect
W ontoe’re all familiar with parables — stories told for the purpose of education, hoping to impart “proper” societal values their audience. Generally speaking they are aimed at youth, the theory being that they, lacking somewhat in life experience, stand to benefit the most from a healthy dose of well-meaning allegory.
These morality tales, keeping up with the times, have been distributed orally, in writing and, of course, on the silver screen. It stands to reason that to keep up with the youth of today they must soon (if they haven’t already) transition into the hands of YouTube vloggers or Snapchat stars or some far-flung VR space. But that’s a topic for another day.
At hand is the matter of Sherlock Gnomes, the latest effort from Rocket Pictures, the film imprint of one Sir Elton Hercules John (which likely accounts for the film’s voice cast of heavies, including James McAvoy, Emily Blunt, Michael Caine, Dame Maggie Smith, Johnny Depp and others). This is the studio’s first release since (and a direct sequel to) 2011’s Gnomeo & Juliet. Sherlock Gnomes is indeed something of a parable. It has a lesson baked into what might otherwise be little more than a trite pun delivery system. However, I bring up parables less in relation to the film than in relation to this reviewer’s film-going experience.
You see I was highly trepidatious about going to see Sherlock Gnomes, particularly in a public setting where others might (GASP!) see me doing so. I must admit I entered into the ordeal animated by prejudice. The well was poisoned, you see. As the astute reader may have noticed, “gnomes” does not even properly rhyme with “Holmes” so things were entirely unsatisfactory from the get go. I kid, but on the square.
In any case, I didn’t relish the assignment. Don’t get me wrong: I love me some animation. Some of my favorite films have been animated. Case in point, I saw Disney-Pixar’s Coco twice last year in theaters. I cried both times. Dynamic storytelling transcends medium, but for some reason the idea of watching a sequel to an animated feature I had never seen, from a company without Pixar’s track record of success, trodding tired storytelling turf (how many Sherlock Holmes riffs have there been in the past decade?), punctuated with a groan-worthy pun for a title.
On top of it all, I had seen very little in the way of advance press for the film and March is historically something of a dumping ground as far as film distribution is concerned. All the signs of a real dog were there.
Thus, I was entirely unsurprised as I entered the theater at 2:33 p.m. with the film (or rather the trailers) set to begin at 2:40 and find myself the only soul in attendance. Seeking refuge from the imagined terrors of the screen, I hunkered down in the farthest corner of the room with my notepad and an unhealthy quantity of popcorn as my only companions, mentally preparing for what is to come.
Before curtain a few more patrons trickle in, likely a dozen or so altogether. Every other adult is companied by one or more children and I wonder to myself if they, too. received glances from the ticket tellers and takers that (to me) resembled those reserved for the newly bereaved or terminally ill. Somehow, I doubt it.
The trailers begin and I note that it is an interesting mix. It’s mostly B-movie animation. One was about yetis I think. The others I’ve already forgotten, outside of a truly unholy amalgam of the dogsfight-crime and animals-talk genres that resembled nothing so much as a mash up of the 2001 David Arquette vehicle (pause a moment for audience laughter) See Spot Run and 2018’s very own Peter Rabbit. But nestled amongst this kid-friendly fare is a Wim Wenders documentary on the Pope and a very violent trailer for Sicario 2. Like I say, it’s an interesting mix.
And then when get our feature. I wonder idly if I’ll be at any sort of disadvantage from having missed the initial installment. My guess is no and my guess is (mostly) right.
The film opens with a mini-rundown of the multiplicity of gnome puns the writers came up with as three gnomes fight over what story to tell the audience before settling on Sherlock Gnomes. We’re given a small vignette establishing the titular as defender of the gnomes of London. We see him apparently defeat nemesis Moriarty, who in this iteration is a pie mascot of some sort.
Then we’re whisked off to the heroes of Gnomeo & Juliet in transit, on top of a station wagon in a box helpfully labeled “GNOMES.” A very important set of ornaments they must be! The people whose garden they inhabited (the relationship between man and gnome not being spelled out in this installment, one must assume it was taken care of earlier on; in any case, Toy Story rules apply, generally speaking) are moving from the countryside to London town, putting the crew neatly into Sherlock’s neighborhood for storytelling purposes.
Several threads are twitched from here. Juliet and Gnomeo are given charge of the new garden from their parents and set about getting it into order but come into conflict over their differing priorities, leading to semi-estrangement as Gnomeo feels Juliet no longer values him as she once did. We have already seen a similar dynamic established between Sherlock Gnomes and Watson, whom Sherlock is seen belittling with regularity.
Their worlds collide as the gnomes of London begin vanishing en masse including those in Gnomeo and Juliet’s extended entourage. Absent from the kidnapping, Gnomeo and Juliet tag along in Sherlock and Watson’s investigation working to get to the bottom of both the case and, of course, their own interpersonal dilemmas.
At the beginning of all this I’m sitting, pen poised, waiting to lambast what I fully expect to be an awful film, but eventually I set the pen down, having written very little. Was there nothing to criticize? No, there certainly was. Was I engrossed in the story? Eh, it wasn’t terrible but nothing particularly engaging. There were jokes that didn’t land (I don’t remember hearing anybody laugh even once) and there wasn’t anything in the way of emotional resonance, but it wasn’t offensive. Does it have a “reason to exist”? No, but it doesn’t hurt anybody that it does.
It is pretty vibrantly animated with some amusing sequences inside the mind of Sherlock in the middle of his deductions offering some wry looks at his self-centeredness. In fact, it’s animated with enough imagination that you kind of lament touches like a half-baked gnome/ frog-ornament love story. But really, it’s Saturday afternoon filler and doesn’t pretend to be anything else. If you need to get the kids out of the house, it’ll serve. It’s … fine.
The moral of that story (that is, Sherlock Gnomes) is not to take other people for granted. That’s a solid lesson. The moral of this story is don’t waste your time building negative expectations. Most of the time things are going to be perfectly OK.