SHERLOCK GNOMES
Director: John Stevenson
Cast: Emily Blunt, James McAvoy, Johnny Depp, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Jamie Demetriou, Mary J. Blige, Matt Lucas, Stephen Merchant
Rating: (G)
★★★ (out of five)
As both movies are about small creatures having to navigate the world of humans, I was hoping for more of the same fairy dust.
First, the good thing about Sherlock Gnomes.
It looks fabulous. You can spend a happy hour and a-half enjoying the glossy visuals and leave feeling that it was not that bad. However, if plot and dialogue are important to you, Sherlock Gnomes is overly complicated and lacklustre in the humour department.
Juliet (Emily Blunt) and Gnomeo (James McAvoy) and all their extended family have moved to London, which is in the grip of a gnome-related crime spree. So the two lovers of earlier film Gnomeo & Juliet are shoe-horned into a Sherlock Holmes-style mystery.
Johnny Depp, as Sherlock Gnomes, is every bit as annoying as he is in all his other characters on stage, screen and television. He is locked in a battle with arch villain Moriarty (Jamie Demetriou) who keeps stealing innocent garden gnomes and smashing them.
When all the gnomes from Juliet and Gnomeo’s garden are stolen, they insist on joining Sherlock and Dr Watson (Chiwetel Ejiofor) in the hunt to recover them before it is too late.
While there are scenes that linger in the memory for the animation, I was ultimately disappointed.
- Christine Powley
