BEFORE: It's a weird feeling, knowing I have all my summer movies picked out already - umm, I think. The plan could still go south, but I think that if I just hang tight and do nothing, maybe everything will work out, or at least I'll get more comfortable with the plan. I kind of went through my list and I tried to find movies on it that I definitely wanted to see, ASAP, that are NOT currently on the summer plan, and I didn't come up with anything. This suggests, maybe, that I've properly prioritized things, and maybe I can just relax and watch a bunch of movies this summer that I want to see? That would be nice.
Sure, I'd love to plan my September and my October schedules - NY Comic Con is in October and we sometimes maybe take a vacation, too, but since I'm half out of work in July and August it might make more sense to take a road-trip or too, maybe not a big vacation because again, half out of work. But the thing about August is that it's usually too hot to go anywhere, wouldn't I rather spend more time at home with the A.C. on, or more time watching movies in an air-conditioned theater? I think half of the films I want to see in theaters are programmed for July, though, so I should probably start making plans to see them, plus who knows how long movies stay in theaters these days? Don't things end up streaming after like 90 days or something now? How does that work, do they count 90 days from the date of first release, or from the LAST day that a movie was in theaters? Would be helpful to know - but I guess if there's a new Indiana Jones movie playing in cinemas, I should probably get my ass out there to see it, especially since the theater I work at is closed for the summer. In what universe does THAT make sense? Oh, yeah, the one where the theater is run by a college.
Millie Bobby Brown and at least five other actors carry over from "Enola Holmes". Seems about right for a sequel.
THE PLOT: Now a detective-for-hire, Enola Holmes takes on her first official case to find a missing girl as the sparks of a dangerous conspiracy ignite a mystery that requires the help of friends - and Sherlock himself - to unravel.
AFTER: I was surprised to find that there was a lawsuit over the first "Enola Holmes" movie, and it was sort of about copyright, but also sort of not - the main complaint seemed to be that the film wasn't being true to the character of Sherlock Holmes because initially it portrayed him as too emotional. As if the greatest detective of his day couldn't POSSIBLY also have feelings for his family members, because at his core he should apparently be nothing but logical and deductive. It's a silly argument, but somebody in charge of Arthur Conan Doyle's estate felt it was an important point to make, and I think maybe they made some changes to that film as a result, but ultimately the filmmakers won the case, and their right to portray the character as they saw fit. (Again, if an animated film can portray Holmes as a CGI dog, then what's the big deal with letting us see his vulnerable side?)
Umm, standard SPOILER ALERT tonight, because this film's only been on Netflix since last November, so if you're not current, please keep calm, carry on and tune in again tomorrow. Thanks.
Well, I liked the second installment in this franchise a little better than the first - probably partially because we all already knew the characters going in, so the film didn't have to spend an hour introducing everybody. And Mycroft doesn't even show up in this one, so that's a time-saver, plus he was a bit of a Debbie Downer, anyway. Enola is now the ward of Sherlock, and that's how things should be, especially if she wants to progress from an amateur detective to a professional one. They still are reluctant to work together, because Enola doesn't want to be in her big brother's shadow (both figuratively and literally, the guy is BUILT) and Sherlock is the kind of detective who prefers to work alone. That's right, ALONE, I mean, whoever heard of the great Sherlock Holmes working with a partner, somebody to share his flat with, somebody to bounce ideas off of, someone to watch out for him and take after him and act all shocked when he solves a mystery by fantastic observations and deductions, I mean, that would really really drag him down, to have to work every case with a PARTNER, right? How absurd would THAT be?
I'm kidding, of course - Watson gets introduced in the very very end of this movie, like post-credits, so I guess he'll be important if there's an "Enola Holmes 3" released in 2024. I would support that, though, except they may have gone a bit too far by making Watson of Indian descent - I mean, that's all well and good for Lestrade, but WATSON? No, no, no, but if I complain about this too much then I'M the racist, I'm the bad guy, I suppose. Still, if you run the Conan Doyle estate and you're looking for another reason to sue the filmmakers, this would probably be a good one, by my estimation. Watson is English, full stop. No, really, just stop, stop turning all the classic literary characters into people of color, because it's not necessary. You can surround these characters with people of every ethnic background, but you shouldn't change the way the main characters are written, and that extends to their race. Sorry, but I'm taking a hard line on this one.
Though I will admit, the director (or casting director) is willing to go all the way with this - because if you're going to do bling casting on the heroic characters, you've got to do it for the villain characters as well. No spoilers here, but I think that's only fair. You'll see what I mean before the end of "Enola Holmes 2" if you watch it - it's a bold move and I'm honestly shocked that this casting didn't cause a wave of BAD publicity.
Let me remind you that at one point some people thought that the first "Star Wars" film was racist, because all the heroes wore white and Darth Vader was dressed in black, and there were almost NO black actors cast in "A New Hope". I don't remember which was the greater sin, to depict black as evil and white as good or to just not hire any black actors, but from a liberal standpoint, they're both bad. It's a bit of an over-simplification, though, because stormtroopers wear white armor, and they're on the evil side, and then you have the voice of Darth Vader portrayed by a black man - so it is what it is, since it's really a Western in space you have to just fall back on the "white hat / black hat" motif that old Westerns used to tell the good guys from the bad guys. Anyway they hired Billy Dee Williams for (ultimately) a hero role in the sequel, and this is probably why.
Anyway, "Enola Holmes" carries some of the same liberal themes from the first film into the sequel - Enola wants to be an independent woman running her own business, while her mother is still championing feminist causes and blowing up postboxes as sort of a wanna-be Guy Fawkes. (Gal Fawkes?). And the central story centers on girls who work in a match factory, who keep getting sick because of the phosphorus being used to make the match heads - there really was a strike by these workers in 1888, led by labor activist Sarah Chapman, because 20 percent of the workers tended to die when constantly exposed to the chemicals used to make the match heads. On top of that, the workers (mostly poor girls) were paid low wages and then fined for a wide variety of reasons, which reduced their pay further.
Three years later (in real life) the Salvation Army opened its own match factory in London, and they switched back from white phosphorus to red, which was safer for the workers to be around. The bad publicity from white matches also convinced some of the other manufacturers to switch back to red, but these matches were more expensive to make, so those factories had to use child labor to cut costs and compete with the companies that were still making white matches. Finally, the House of Commons passed an act prohibiting white phosphorus in matches, but not until 1908, twenty years after the strike - and the act didn't take effect until 1910. Way to be on the ball when lives are at stake, Parliament. I think the British match companies learned everything from American tobacco companies, only they killed their WORKERS and not their CUSTOMERS. (How the hell did tobacco companies do so well in America for so long, given that they were selling a deadly product? Oh, right, it was a deadly and addictive product.)
When I was a kid they released a Sherlock Holmes movie not based on any Conan Doyle book, not one that suggested Sherlock had a sister, but a film that was meant to be a sort of origin story for Sherlock Holmes, and it was called "Young Sherlock Holmes". It was directed by Barry Levinson and written by Chris Columbus, and produced by some hack named Spielberg, I wonder whatever happened to him. Anyway, it wouldn't fly today because all of the characters were white and male, but if you get a chance to look it up, I remember it was a very decent little film for its time, and that was 1985. I must have it on DVD somewhere, maybe I'll do a rewatch, it's been a few years since I last watched it. Looks like it might be on Roku or Sling or maybe Amazon Prime? Nah, I'll just watch the DVD.
Anyway, the second film in this franchise held my attention a little better - I didn't drift off to sleep until much closer to the end while watching the sequel. Still, that happened, and I had to wake up, rewind, and force myself to stay awake, several times. Which is strange, because I've been getting more sleep than usual this week, but I've also been working on the new summer to-do list, so maybe that's why I'm so tired and I can't make it all the way through a movie. Maybe I just need to find a new summer job - I'll start looking again tomorrow. Definitely tomorrow.
Also starring Henry Cavill, Louis Partridge, Susan Wokoma, Adeel Akhtar, Helena Bonham Carter, Sofia Stavrinou (all carrying over from "Enola Holmes"), David Thewlis (last seen in "Val"), Sharon Duncan-Brewster (last seen in "Dune: Part One"), Himesh Patel (last seen in "Don't Look Up"), Hannah Dodd (last seen in "Eternals"), Abbie Hern, Roisin Monaghan, Gabriel Tierney, David Westhead (last seen in "The Iron Lady"), Tim McMullan (last seen in "Cyrano"), Lee Boardman (last seen in "The Young Messiah"), Serrana Su-Ling Bliss (last seen in "Belfast"), John Parshall, Catriona Chandler, Tony Lucken, Alison Knox, Jules Wallace, Donovan Louie, Nia Gandhi, Peter Groom.
RATING: 7 out of 10 men who don't mind trading clothes with Enola (future drag queens?)
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