Sherlock Gnomes

5 minutes into the movie, you could hear children asking their parents about what was happening?? Who & What is Sherlock? 10 minutes into movie, kids wanting to go get candy or a drink or needing to go to the restroom. Upon their return, it was a buzz of chaos from the kids, again! 1/2 way through the movie, you could tell this movie was a flop to the kids. I tried to fill my G-daughter in on who Sherlock Holmes was......and to lay the plot up to her so she could catch up from her own Popcorn break.... but, she had already lost interest and was looking around at the other kids in the theater and asking how much longer was left of the movie, so we could go bowling. Not an attention getter for kids.

Sherlock Gnomes and Watson are the protectors of London's gnomes against the evil Moriarty. After defeating Moriarty, Sherlock is listless until he gets a new case of missing gnomes. Gnomeo and Juliet discover their family and friends have disappeared. They join Sherlock and Watson on their investigation.

This franchise doesn't have the highest of ambitions. It does have some fun characters. This sequel adds an interesting Sherlock and Watson duo. I like them and I like their opening battle with Moriarty. The start is muddled by the fact that the franchise protagonists are Gnomeo and Juliet. There is a split in attention. Once the foursome is formed, they are actually fun together. The best part is Juliet being smarter and more capable than the arrogant Sherlock. Once the group splits up again, the fun chemistry gets muddled again. Mostly, I like these characters and the overly complicated scheme does fit the plot. It's a fun short time and this movie is short.

Ah, direct sequel to Gnomeo & Juliet. And you know? I kind of waited for it. Back in 2011 I thought that Gnomeo & Juliet was pretty cute. I always loved stories about the worlds of toys and garden gnomes added nice little touch to the concept. The biggest problem with Gnomeo & Juliet was the fact that it was somewhat... boring. It was a cute little family movie with nice animation and some pretty heartwarming moments, but... it was also somewhat generic. So, while 10+ kids had a chance to fully enjoy it, parents, on the other hand, were can't help but feel sleepy from time to time. Just because, well, they've seen most of the stuff already for quite some times. Yes, garden with cute little gnomes was a nice touch, but it wasn't enough to turn the whole thing into an exciting experience. So, what I expected from sequel is to fix that problem. Because with better script Gnomeo & Juliet had a chance to become really good. So, did sequel achieve that?

Unfortunately, no. Quite the opposite, actually. Sherlock Gnomes is pretty much exactly the same thing. Which means that we've got a lot of adorable characters, we've got stars (Ozzy Osbourne returns as Fawn, while Johnny Depp voices the title character), we've got surprisingly good animation with really nice 3D, we've got soundtrack with a lot of famous songs by Sir Elton John, we've got a story with meaning for both kids and adults, we've got some heartwarming moments... BUT we didn't get anything unique. Like with Gnomeo & Juliet, you won't miss anything special if you'll skip Sherlock Gnomes. Just because a lot of other animated movies can provide pretty much the same thing with almost the same stories and meanings. So, again, garden gnomes repeated their biggest mistake. They didn't provide the real reason to pay for a ticket.

Of course, there are moments in your life when you want a family movie and don't want to re-watch the Toy Story for like a million time. And that's where this movie shines. It's something that was made exactly for such moments. To fill the gap between you re-watching Toy Story and you re-watching Despicable Me during your family animation marathon on holidays. Some scenes are actually feel like they were made with those movies in mind. It's like more of the same and that's it. So, did I enjoy Sherlock Gnomes? Yep. Does it worth going to a movie and pay for tickets? Nope. Like previous movie, this one is something you occasionally watch on Netflix. And there's no other way to it, even if it means for you to miss pretty nice 3D.

After awhile I was pretty burned out on the friendship stuff, the theme was revisited so much I started to wonder if it was being used as filler.

The scene in the toy store with the cats and stuff was good and funny, that 'set piece' was the one redeeming feature for the movie, there wasn't enough of that kind of thing. I wonder if anyone did a cut of that scene and put it on utube, if so go to Utube and watch the one thing from the movie that was enjoyable and do something else with that time saved.

I could be wrong, but I think whoever came up with the toy cat stuff was hired as an outside consultant in relation to the writers and producers of this soap operatic gnome movie

(Sigh) . . . Lacking, would be my one word review of "Sherlock Gnomes". Though the animation itself is nice, the basic story and lacklustre script will probably leave most of the children in the audience bored, let alone the adults.

The vocal performances are a mixed bag. With Gnomeo and Juliet effectively sidelined for a lot of the film, their performers (James McAvoy and Emily Blunt) probably give the flattest turns, but this does allow for Johnny Depp and, particularly, Jamie Demetriou to shine as Holmes and Moriaty respectively. There is a song crowbarred in around the middle of the picture from Mary j Blige's Irene Adler, which is as inexplicable as it is awful. In fact, music in general it a bit of a problem for the film - with a few bars of various Elton John hits piped into certain scenes, but it's like hearing a panpipe version in a lift, recognisable but not entertaining.

There is, as I say, some nice animation but there aren't nearly enough gags that land, and certainly not enough that would appeal to any of the older kids / adults in the audience.