When it comes to stories about arguably the greatest detective to ever spring from the pages of fiction, give me Benedict Cumberbatch’s Sherlock (2010-2017).  A close second would be the few movies featuring the same character, Sherlock Holmes (2009), with Robert Downey Jr. in the title role, reprising it in 2011 with Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows.  Every other attempt at bringing these figures to the silver screen have paled in comparison.  I always have to balance my penchant for attempting humor and my deeper desire to be Catholic, but today’s film, Holmes & Watson (2018), is so pale as to be invisible.  If that metaphor does not make sense, neither will this review other than to explain how bad it is.

Apparently the first person in the title Holmes & Watson, Sherlock Holmes (Hector Bateman-Harden), is off to a bad start in life.  Before becoming a famous detective as an adult (Will Ferrell), he is a scared little boy being dropped off at boarding school.  The other students bully him for his earnestness, including the girl on whom he develops a crush.  The final insult comes when he is tricked into kissing a donkey’s butt instead of her.  The embarrassment causes him to devote himself to rational thinking, and he begins by deducing a way to get every one of his classmates expelled.  The only friend he makes is John Watson (Codie-Lei Eastick), who Sherlock predicts will become a doctor (John C. Reilly).  As you might expect, they grow up to be the widely popular consulting detective and physician, and they are expected at the courthouse to present needed evidence to put Sherlock’s nemesis, Professor James Moriarty (Ralph Fiennes), in jail.  Instead, Sherlock and Dr. Watson are doing comedic shenanigans to the continuing dismay of their housekeeper, Rose Hudson (Kelly Macdonald).  Despite the release of a deadly mosquito, and even deadlier swarm of bees, they finally make it before the judge where Sherlock announces that the person on the docket is an impostor named Jacob Musgrave.  I will go ahead and tell you now that more than half of the humor in this film is about making these cases be needlessly more complicated than they should be.  When Professor Moriarty is about to be released, a horrified Inspector Lestrade (Rob Brydon) vehemently protests.  Nonetheless, the press is used to being impressed with that Sherlock does, and Dr. Watson remains contentedly on the side.  The two are suddenly without a case until they are summoned to Buckingham Palace to meet Queen Victoria (Pam Ferris).  Before getting to the room where they are supposed to discuss an important matter, Sherlock has already guessed that it is really a surprise birthday party for him.  However, when they try to cut into the cake, they find a dead body inside with a note.  The mysterious killer has written a threat against the English monarch, saying that she will die in three days.  With something new to solve, the first step is to examine the corpse.  To do this, Dr. Watson is assisted by Dr. Grace Hart (Rebecca Hall), with whom he develops an instant connection.  Because of their attraction, they are distracted from any conclusive findings, but Sherlock determines that the victim had died by poisoning from a tattoo.  The clue leads them to Gustav Klinger (Steve Coogan), a one-armed tattoo artist, who is assassinated before he can reveal a connection to Professor Moriarty.  Seemingly at a dead end, Sherlock decides to visit his brother Mycroft Holmes (Hugh Laurie) at the Diogenes Club.  Because it is renowned for its silence, Mycroft and Sherlock communicate telepathically because they are smart, making Dr. Watson wait in a “guest area.”  During the consultation, Mycroft suggests that whoever is behind these machinations is someone that is used to Sherlock’s methods.  With this in mind, Sherlock leaps to the impossible conclusion that it is Dr. Watson who is responsible for these schemes.  With Dr. Watson loudly protesting, he is arrested, with Sherlock maintaining his usual impassiveness.  However, looking over his friend’s journals and the overwhelmingly kind things Dr. Watson has written about the detective, Sherlock comes to regret his behavior.  While performing a song and dance number for some reason, Sherlock goes to visit Dr. Watson and have the accused released.  Yet, Sherlock finds the cell empty and only a plate full of red velvet cake crumbs.  All the same, this is enough of a clue for him to deduce that it is Rose that is the culprit, and that she is the secret child of Professor Moriarty.  It gets worse (in every sense of the word) when Sherlock traces everyone to the HMS Titanic.  Below decks, Dr. Watson is about to be killed while Rose has planted a bomb above to kill Queen Victoria, who is hosting a party on the ship.  Sherlock first saves Dr. Watson, then the latter finds the explosive Rose had hidden, throwing it out the window and onto her dinghy.  She dies in the explosion, and Sherlock makes sure to give Dr. Watson the hero’s credit.  This is brought home, literally, as Sherlock has arranged to have a sign affixed to the front of their abode reading “Dr. Watson – Co-Detective,” albeit much smaller than Sherlock’s.

I wish I could make Holmes & Watson so small that it no longer exists, but that is being mean spirited and not Christ-like.  Then again, I did not have any great expectations for what I was about to watch when I started it.  Actually, my hopes were briefly boosted in the first moments as Sherlock’s mother (Laura Stevely) tells young Sherlock to open his heart to the world, and that by doing so, it will open itself to him.  That is a sentiment with Catholic echoes.  God did this by giving His only Son, Jesus, to become fully human.  Since we are called to follow Him as closely as possible, it makes sense to say that we are also to open ourselves to the world.  Then again, we need to have a filter.  The world can be a hard place as the boy learns at school.  God never allows us to face such trials beyond our capacity to deal with them.  That is not to diminish how difficult it is to overcome bullying, but to be realistic that it is a possibility when dealing with the world.  Further, it is nothing that Jesus did not face Himself.  He did not do as Sherlock, becoming a cold, calculating machine capable of believing Dr. Watson, his best friend, capable of murder because the physician is of a lesser intellect.  Science is a wonderful thing, and should be followed, but it is not the totality of truth.  Sometimes, it can lead us to the wrong conclusions.  The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that Faith and science work together in presenting a full picture of our reality, although one that can never be fully grasped this side of the grave.  For now, we are left with the world, and shutting ourselves off from it can cause problems as we see here.

Then again, there are those in the Catholic Faith that purposely close themselves off from the world, but such matters are a far cry from anything in Holmes & Watson.  I hate to be brutally honest, but it is not funny and you should watch something else.