Doom Patrol (2019) s04e05 – Youth Patrol

Wow, it’s so good.

Even for “Doom Patrol,” it’s so good. It’s a very “Doom Patrol” episode, too; the team has a mission, then something happens, and they have to go on a side mission. Given guest star Mark Sheppard finally reveals there’s a narrative reason for the main cast to remain young, it’s not impossible the show will finally acknowledge its way of detouring the characters through arcs instead of action sequences.

Though, it’s really only Diane Guerrero and April Bowlby who are “staying” young. Brendan Fraser and Riley Shanahan are a robot (exceptional physical performance from Shanahan this episode). Matt Bomer and Matthew Zuk are radioactive, so they probably don’t age regardless of magic. Then Joivan Wade and Michelle Gomez aren’t part of the original “Doom Patrol,” at least as far as how Timothy Dalton (who appears in recap footage) saved them from death.

Now, after three seasons, we’re getting some more details on that process.

Until Bowlby accidentally gets everyone cursed (not Bomer, sorry, he’s off on a mission), anyway. She wakes up from their adventure a couple episodes ago (last episode not featuring the regular cast and instead catching up with Abi Monterey, who’s not in the episode despite the recap only being about her) and discovers she’s not young anymore. But since Wade didn’t check on her, she misses the team briefing where Sheppard explains the season big bad is after their “longevity.” And it looks like Bowlby lost hers.

So she snoops around Dalton’s office and finds something she thinks will help. Instead, she curses everyone (not Bomer) with de-aging, initially hormonally, but eventually physically as well. With a furious Sheppard taking charge, they head off to Toledo in search of a cure.

They make it one pit stop before Gomez and Bowlby get into an argument and abandon the group, while Fraser and Guerrero find some fellow youths who know about a great party.

It ends up being an excellent episode for most of the cast. Oh, right—Bomer. He’s off trying to find the alien energy parasite baby and instead finds himself trapped in returning guest star Sendhil Ramamurthy’s flashbacks. It turns out they’ve got a lot in common. It’s a good arc. Excellent performances, but dealing with more significant issues than the rest of the team, who have some elementary problems they just can’t figure out how to solve.

Wade’s still upset old friend Elijah R. Reed has given up on him after not hearing anything for ten years, Guerrero’s feeling guilty about enjoying driving the body (and not feeling like it’s hers), and then Bowlby still really hates Gomez. Justifiably.

Outstanding performances from Guerrero and Wade, but Gomez. Wow, Gomez. She gets one hell of a scene. And Sheppard, too, gets far more textured scenes than his bellowing curses suggest.

It’s a great episode. Excellent direction from Chris Manley, but the script (credited to Shoshana Sachi) is just phenomenal.

Oh, and the music—Kevin Kiner and Clint Mansell do even better work than usual, especially with Guerrero’s big scene.

So good.

Doom Patrol (2019) s04e04 – Casey Patrol

“Doom Patrol” has been having a fine season to this point; fine enough, one hopes they’re prepared for a non-renewal, but the series hasn’t been sublime. Every so often, “Doom Patrol” has a way of being sublime, where the story’s quirkiness, the characters’ humanity, and the Kevin Kiner and Clint Mansell music is just right, and the show transcends.

Hasn’t happened this season until now. And it’s not even with the regular cast or—until the finale—part of the season arc. There’s a reveal at the end to tie things together (but not too much of a reveal, of course) and raise the show’s aim for the season. It sure seems like they’re going to have one heck of a season arc.

Anyway. This episode features the return of Abi Monterey as Chief’s daughter, Dorothy. Is it as in Oz? I can’t remember. Chief was (will be?) played by Timothy Dalton in seasons one and two. He doesn’t come back this episode for a cameo, though we do hear—in the opening recap from Monterey—she’s seen him, spent a hundred years hanging out, and now she’s found peace with his death.

And him spending most of her life treating her like an apocalypse child just because she can conjure her invincible, sometimes uncontrollable imaginary monster friends into reality. So, they’ve got some unresolved baggage since he left the mortal coil.

Monterey departed “Doom Patrol” at the start of Season Three, after they resolved her leftover season arc from Season Two (Covid prematurely ended it), heading off with The Dead Boy Detectives in a back door pilot for another HBO Max/Vertigo show. When “Dead” went to pilot, however, Monterey (and the “Patrol” actors) weren’t part of it. So it’s nice to have her back.

For much of the episode, it again feels like a back-door pilot, but this time for Monterey, guest star Madeline Zima, and possibly returning guest star Alan Mingo Jr.

Monterey’s been hanging out in Danny the Street, who’s still providing a welcoming, safe space for those in need, but the world outside’s shitty, so Danny’s getting more and more to capacity. They’re set up as a campground where Monterey can mope in her Airstream, and Mingo can belt out a song whenever necessary.

As Mingo returns from a day out in the world full of shitty little bigots—specifically shitty little white skater bigots—a bunch of metal bugs invades Danny. Mingo’s character is a drag queen who knows a lot about the world not being the way it seems like it should. So Mingo and Monterey are having a heart-to-heart (well, more like Mingo’s trying to have one) as the bugs take out their friends.

Wait, I forgot. The episode opens with an animated comic sequence: Monterey reading her favorite comic, Space Case.

Okay. The bugs turn the people into space zombies right out of the comic; Monterey realizes it and, in a panic, apparently brings the hero (Space Case) out into the real world, where Zima plays her.

So it’s Monterey, Mingo, and Zima battling a bunch of space zombies; only Zima doesn’t know how to deal with the threat without destroying them. And the people they were before the bug bite, leading to a “real world” hero arc for Zima.

Further complicating matters is Zima’s comic book nemesis also showing up, played by Tyler Mane. They’ve got a lengthy backstory, which Monterey summarizes, and it becomes clearer why she’s such a fan of the comic.

It’s a mic drop great episode. Great performances from Monterey and Mingo, excellent writing (credit to Tom Farrell). Kristin Windell’s direction is strong too. “Doom Patrol”’s so good. I can’t wait to see where it all goes this season.

All Creatures Great and Small (2020) s03e07 – Merry Bloody Christmas

Pun fully intended, Callum Woodhouse continues to show why he’s “All Creatures”’s trickiest casting but also its most successful. This Christmas special is set, appropriately, at Christmas, only war’s on, and no one’s feeling like celebrating this year. Especially not with Nicholas Ralph chomping at the bit for his chance to go—after the proper season’s finale where he and Woodhouse signed up, which was basically the season arc… it turns out they might not get shipped out anyway. They’re exempt because they’re vets or whatever.

There’s no annual Christmas party in the offing, not until Anna Madeley discovers her love interest, Will Thorp, is moving away. She invites him over and then has to put together a party, so it doesn’t look like she just invited him over.

The special filters much of the household goings-on through guest star Ella Bernstein. She’s playing a refugee from… somewhere, presumably in England, though maybe not. She’s Jewish, adorable, precocious, and fascinated by Christmas. She also basically fills the function of Ralph for the special. Ralph and Rachel Shenton are entirely support here.

The veterinary case this episode—outside Bernstein getting to meet Mrs. P. (I’m entirely on board with Patricia Hodge now, even if last we saw the manor, she was getting it ready for the war effort, and now it’s empty) and Tricki Woo (played, as ever, by Derek), who have a kitten problem only a little kid can help with—is about Samuel West and the racehorse he nursed back to health in the regular season. It was a great episode for West. This episode sort of hopes everyone forgets how emotional he got because he quickly finds himself letting old war buddy Michael Maloney bribe him into ignoring some medical conditions.

West’s change in behavior doesn’t go unnoticed, not when Woodhouse comes out to the stables to help out and discovers something suspect.

It’s a very emotion-filled episode for West, Woodhouse, and Madeley, as they once again have to contend with their abnormal but normal, actually, family structure, with great acting from all three. Woodhouse gets to be the stand-out; well, and Madeley, but not in the family arc, though she seems to have a realization about doing emotional labor for the boys).

Besides West’s slightly rushed character arc and a couple of places they obviously cut out another scene for time, it’s a stellar episode.

Doom Patrol (2019) s04e03 – Nostalgia Patrol

This episode leaves the butts behind—had to—and gets going with the other big bad of the season. The season premiere had special cameo guest star Mark Sheppard explaining he and the other wizards knew the Doom Patrol would have to fight the butts this season, but they’ve also got to fight someone or something called Immortus. This episode slowly introduces that villain to the team while letting everyone work through some unresolved issues.

Things pick up immediately after last episode; April Bowlby’s mad no one wants her to be team leader, Matt Bomer can’t convince his alien energy baby parasite to trust him, Michelle Gomez is sad she’s making Brendan Fraser be a super-powered weapon and not a person, Diane Guerrero’s floundering, and Joivan Wade wants to go hang out with old friends. He couldn’t before when he was Cyborg because… well, even though half the episode’s character development is in Wade’s subplot (Gomez gets the other half, everyone else is having a quirky superhero episode), the show passes the buck on letting Wade explain himself.

After his accident in high school—ten years ago—he ditched his friends and hasn’t seen them since. “Doom Patrol” has always had problems with years. Most of the regular cast literally sat around the mansion for decades, waiting for the show to start. Wade hanging out with pals Elijah R. Reed, Zari James, and Moses Jones at an early eighties sitcom pizza parlor (where they go on to play LaserTag), it feels more uncanny than the team trying to save Bowlby from being trapped inside her old movies.

Where the episode stumbles with Wade, it excels with Gomez. She’s the new team leader, and instead of being a ruthless hard-ass, she tries to be more empathetic, which disappoints the gang. Then things go wrong on the mission, and Gomez is forced to become a leader right fast. Unfortunately, she drinks her way through instead, leading to a phenomenal drunken monologue from Gomez. Kristin Windell’s direction is solid throughout, but that scene with Gomez is spectacular. Great editing from Brian Wessel too. And then Gomez. So good.

Despite ending on a precarious cliffhanger, lots of the episode is for laughs. Given the amount of f-bombs throughout, they could’ve called it Phucked Patrol instead of Nostalgia. The script, credited to Tanya Steele, is good, with some of the Wade stuff a little thin, but then leading in hard on the f-bombs—at least one cast member a subplot (save Wade) gets to do an f-bomb string. It’s hilarious, especially since Bowlby complaining about the cursing was a plot point in a previous episode.

The quirky superhero action is good. Guerrero, Fraser, and Riley Shanahan are trying to find Bowlby in a sixties horror movie while talking about Guerrero’s out-of-nowhere potential romance (or potential for romance). Shanahan has some excellent humor body work while Fraser’s making Guerrero (and the audience) uncomfortable with his willingness to discuss her love life. Then Bomer and Matthew Zuk make a new friend in the old movies while not paying enough attention to the warning signs.

Sendhil Ramamurthy—a returning DC Comics adaptation actor (he was on “The Flash” one season, and terrible)—plays the new friend. He seems like he’ll be back, along with some more new characters.

It’s a good episode. Lots of showcases for the cast—Bowlby in the old movies is great—and it’s too bad they couldn’t crack the Wade storyline. It’s just too forced. But, otherwise, “Doom Patrol”’s sailing smoothly into the season.

Doom Patrol (2019) s04e02 – Butt Patrol

I’m hesitant to call anything “Doom Patrolling,” a la “Westworlding,” but this episode comes close. The team is recovering from their trip to the future and discovering they bring about the “Butt-pocalypse;” one of the zombie butts from last season has survived to destroy the world. April Bowlby’s all set to lead the team to track down Jon Briddell, the bad guy everyone assumes is involved, but the rest of the team gives her a vote of no confidence.

So it seems like we’re going to have an introspective mansion episode—and we do for a couple characters—setting up a bigger mission they’d be doing if they were regular superheroes. It’s mostly a first-season device, but they’ve fallen back on it a few times over the seasons. It’s a fine device, and there have been great episodes with it, but it’s the second episode of the new season… little soon.

Luckily, it’s not that episode at all. Bowlby and Matt Bomer (and Matthew Zuk) have a mansion episode, with Bomer trying to reconnect with his energy parasite—it’s scared of the zombie butt future—and Bowlby is mad Bomer’s not more supportive of her team-leading abilities. Their arc ends up being the least impressive. The show’s not ready to reveal the future energy parasite information, so it’s more about clearing the air; while Bowlby’s mad at Bomer for not being in her corner, he’s angry she came back from the past last season a different person. Albeit, she came back to the future the long way, living ninety years or whatever.

It’d be excellent acting fodder for Bowlby in particular if it were better. Instead, it’s filler until the rest of the team gets back home. Joivan Wade’s upset no one wants him as team leader, so he’s going to go on his own mission, having tracked down a frozen zombie butt. Diane Guerrero tags along, and they have a decent little subplot. They also get to hash out some of their character drama, setting up nice scenes for the closing montage. Guerrero is doing her best work on the show this season, even back to playing her regular persona.

Meanwhile, Michelle Gomez realizes they just need to snuff out the problem, so she enlists Brendan Fraser (more Riley Shanahan for the body work) to help her. It becomes this exceptionally depressing arc about Fraser’s newfound ability to feel (just in one finger, but still) and Gomez’s muted self-loathing as she finds herself again manipulating meta-humans.

Framing the entire episode are the adventures of Keiko Agena’s linguist; starting in flashback, we see how she went to the Ant Farm to work with the butts before the show started. Agena’s real good.

Outside Bomer and Bowlby’s filler arc, it’s a strong episode; script credit to Eric Dietel.

Plus, singing, man-eating butts. What else do you want?

Doom Patrol (2019) s04e01 – Doom Patrol

Last season, “Doom Patrol” had to recover from a Covid-19-induced shortened second season, then get the show into a decent spot for HBO Max to cancel them. Thankfully, HBO Max did not cancel them, and now the show gets to do, presumably, at least this fourth season.

You never know with HBO Max, however.

Anyway.

This season premiere picks up about six months after the finale, which saw the Doom Patrol becoming superheroes under April Bowlby’s enthusiastic, if questionable, leadership. Bowlby’s still team leader, Robotman (Riley Shanahan walking, Brendan Frasier talking), is almost rebuilt, no longer Cyborg Jovian Wade and dad Phil Morris are doing that rebuilding as they try to bond, Diane Guerrero’s having a multiple personality crisis, Matt Bomer and Matthew Zuk (Bomer talking, Zuk wearing the hot costume) are bonding with their new electrical alien parasite, and Michelle Gomez is still trying to atone for her many sins as the latest team member.

Now, Gomez is in the opening credits as “special appearance by,” which isn’t a great sign for her longevity. I kept waiting for her to do a runner this episode, but the show seems sure she’ll be around for a while. Hope so; she and Bowlby are even more fun together hating each other. Or, Bowlby hates Gomez, while Gomez is trying to play nice but noticing the team leadership problems.

It’s a fine place to start the season, with Guerrero narrating. Her primary persona now is the psychiatrist, played in the Underground (where Guerrero interacts with the personalities) by Catherine Carlen. The narration is Guerrero’s psychological observations about the team, which is an excellent device.

However, things go wrong once they go on mission, finding themselves thrown into the future—which the audience has already seen in the episode prologue—and discovering most of their future selves dead, all because of some imminent mistake they’ll be making in the past. There’s a nice mix of action, deception, and character drama, with loads of good acting from the cast. The episode even gets in a great music montage (Clint Mansell and Kevin Kiner) where everyone’s moping around the mansion, realizing the new season’s started and shit’s getting real again.

There are a couple significant reveals in the third act, along with a cameo in an epilogue, lots of future angst, and contemporary drama—the season hook is solid. The episode might feature Guerrero’s best acting on the show, albeit doing a Carlen impression.

So glad “Doom Patrol”’s back. So glad.

Black Adam (2022, Jaume Collet-Serra)

Black Adam opens with kid narration. At first, it seems like the narrator kid is Ancient Kahndaqi Jalon Christian, who’s sick and tired of living under a tyrannical king who has his people mining eternium for him. Eternium is not a “Masters of the Universe” thing; it’s more like the DC Universe version of vibranium. Except not really, because it doesn’t do anything. They set it up like it gives people superpowers, but… no.

But the narrator is not Christian because the flashback’s not in English. The present-day Kahndaqi people all speak English (and are apparently a Christian Middle Eastern nation-state in the DC Movie Universe—they’re Muslim in the comics, but the movie people don’t have the stones to make sympathetic Muslims).

Anyway. The narrator is Bodhi Sabongui. His mom is renegade university professor Sarah Shahi (dressed like a less objectified “Tomb Raider”); she’s trying to keep Intergang from getting all the Eternium. Including a magic crown, which we saw in the prologue. The evil king wants to be a demon lord and needs the crown, but then the people’s hero comes to stop him.

In the comics, Intergang was a criminal organization in Metropolis who gave Superman trouble. In Black Adam, they’re Blackwater, except they’re called Intergang. And they’re committing war crimes daily, but there’s no United Nations to send Jean-Claude Van Damme and whoever in the DC Universe. Instead, there’s the Justice Society, and they don’t give a shit about Intergang committing war crimes. They’re about maintaining the status quo, globally speaking.

So when Shahi resurrects Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson from his tomb to save her from a bunch of bad guys, Viola Davis calls Hawkman Aldis Hodge to go keep the West’s oil interests safe or whatever. The first act of Black Adam—besides the introduction to the superhero team, which is basically just an X-Men sequence (or Deadpool 1)—is a little like Terminator 2. Sabongui is going to teach Johnson it’s not okay to kill people. Except, not really, because Sabongui’s country is being occupied by a criminal organization who made speeder bikes because they really liked Tron. It’s a complicated situation and might need Johnson’s killer instincts, which Pierce Brosnan realizes, but no one listens to him despite him being a hundred years old with a magical gold helmet to tell him the future.

Now, I really hope Davis gets two million dollars a minute in these movies on the condition she films on her iPhone in the bathroom, but Brosnan’s hacking through this movie. He gets some energy when he’s opposite the other actors, including Hodge, who’s an intentional charisma vacuum (he’s playing the straight edge who gets in the Rock’s way), and especially Johnson. Still, Brosnan looks exasperated with all the superhero business.

So, interesting casting choice.

Quintessa Swindell and Noah Centineo play the young superheroes. Centineo is a legacy hero and a lovable, slightly dopey bro. Swindell has a way too intense origin recap, seemingly just so she can privilege-check Centineo. Black Adam’s got three credited screenwriters, but it feels like Many Hands contributed. Because despite that first act “young John Connor and his pet Terminator” setup, the second act’s mostly a superhero fight movie. Johnson’s dealing with the mercenaries while Hodge tries to stop him and let the mercenaries go back to killing civilians.

But there’s also the magical archeology subplot with Shahi and then the secrets of Johnson’s origin story.

The movie’s got a surprisingly effective plot structure. Director Collet-Serra front-loads the best action sequences, set to either pop songs or scene-appropriate selections; the rest of the action’s middling, occasionally a little better. Johnson turns on the charm a little earlier than he should—narratively speaking—but the movie needs it, and he obliges.

Oddly catchy score from Lorne Balfe; it’s not particularly good, but it earworms all right. The special effects and technicals are all competent, though there’s way too much going on in the third act without enough actual content. Characters have big, action-packed story arcs just to delay them from participating in the main plot. It’s weird. They also use a lot of slow and fast motion effects to distract from the finale’s limited scale.

Johnson’s the whole show and he’s much better than anyone else in the movie. His closest competition is Brosnan and Brosnan’s not close. Centineo and Swindell are likable, but in a TV show supporting cast sort of way (which is appropriate since they’re TV show supporting cast). But Shahi and Sabongui—occasional affability aside—aren’t good. And whatever Hodge is doing isn’t working.

With some very specific caveats, Black Adam’s far from a fail.

Hansan: Rising Dragon (2022, Kim Han-min)

About half of Hansan is a naval battle. The second half. The first half is a combination history lesson, period espionage and turgid war thriller, and naval warfare theory symposium. The film’s about Admiral Yi Sun-shin, who kicked the invading Japanese navy’s ass in the sixteenth century. Despite being in command, lots of folks questioned Yi, and then he also was trying new tactics and types of warships. Park Hae-il plays Yi. He’s almost indistinguishable from a wax sculpture; Yi was a pensive, reserved fellow, but Park plays him without any personality whatsoever. Not because Park’s bad, but because director and co-writer Kim Han-min doesn’t do character. Hansan’s utterly absent memorable characters, which is something else for a war movie.

It’s also fine because Hansan is a history lesson. There’s a compelling but narratively problematic prologue with Japanese admiral and general dick Byun Yo-Han inspecting a destroyed warship. The Korean navy has some kind of “turtle ship” with a Dragon head on it, which terrified the ship’s crew as it destroyed the vessel. Now, there have been numerous movies about mystery vessels; at least three James Bonds and maybe a Godzilla. Except there’s no mystery. It’s just Park’s latest idea, though he doesn’t like the dragon head.

Kim and co-writer Yun Hong-gi pull back on the narrative distance so incredibly far their characters lose all perspective. Despite Hansan’s first hour being about Byun wondering what Park’s going to do, while Byun’s allies give him shit and Park’s allies give him shit, and they both try to spy on one another, no one ever learns anything in the film. It’s a history movie with the cause and effect removed.

It also doesn’t matter because the second half is a thrilling naval war movie about the application of firepower on sea-going vessels. Hansan shows its hand in the first half; Park drills the Korean navy with the tactics he’s going to use in the second half. The movie shows off the shark first thing (relatively) but still gets plenty of mileage out of it in the battle. There are some surprises, of course, which unfold the same way as the rest of the film’s reveals. A character is alone, remembering a plot twist a few scenes before, completely changing the nature of their subplot. The film does it at least three times, possibly four, saving a major—but not—reveal for the finale.

But it all still works because Kim pulls off the sea battle. There are some land battles too, which he does okay with, but clearly, the thought went into the warships, and it shows.

The best performance is easily Byun, who gets to relish in unrestrained villainy while almost everyone else has to show some decorum. Kim Sung-kyu is good as an enemy prisoner who coincidentally encountered Park in the flashback. Park Ji-Jean has a fun part as the shipbuilder. Park’s okay; the movie doesn’t ask him to do anything, just stand there. Admittedly, there aren’t many options when you’re just supposed to be watching some quiet thinking guy quietly think.

The technicals are all solid. Han Hyun-gun and Lee Gang-here’s editing is a little impatient in parts—there’s a three or four-minute history lesson montage after the prologue, and it’s too hurried. After threatening dozens of characters, Hansan boils down to like six people before the sea battle. Kim and Yun get way too complicated. Once it settles into the espionage subplot, with actual players, it works much better.

But, again, doesn’t matter so long as the sea battle pays off. The movie starts promising a great sea battle, then delivers it. Along the way, there’s some good filmmaking, decent acting, and compelling history, if not character drama.

Hansan’s a qualified, impressive success.

My Life Is Murder (2019) s03e10 – Killer Fashion

Killer Fashion is a peculiar episode. It’s a peculiar season finale, but it’s also just weird. It’s more about its guest stars than a season finale ought to be, and then there’s the whole fashion angle. Lucy Lawless and Ebony Vagulans are both obsessed with the fashion world, though Lawless won’t admit it. Other than “My Life Is Murder” having delightful costumes (the pastels are presumably because New Zealand loves life because they’re New Zealand), fashion hasn’t been a character trait. All they needed to do was have a scene with Lawless and Vagulans watching a fashion show and eating sourdough, but no, it’s just this previously unexplored, shared trait.

And it’s often delightful. They’re investigating the unexplained death of a fashion model at world-famous designer Mark Mitchinson’s latest show. Lawless bonds with forty-something but still got it fashion model Simone Kessell, while Vagulans pals around with make-up artist Jodie Rimmer and model Bella Rakete. They’re on the case because Rakete is playing cop Rawiri Jobe’s sister, and he doesn’t want someone killing her too.

Martin Henderson shows up because it’s the season finale, and there’s some slight resolution to his season-long character arc. But then they actually put off integrating Henderson into the main ensemble, which again includes Tatum Warren-Ngata, who does nothing this episode but hang out at Joseph Naufahu’s coffee shop. The episode’s all about Lawless and Kessell hanging out—the dead model was Kessell’s direct competition—and Lawless oscillating between suspecting Kessell and just having a wild time with a famous person.

But there’s nothing for Lawless this episode other than showing the guest star a good time. There’s some season finale celebrating, but there’s no character development or even the hint at any. And the mystery’s complicated but straightforward; there are like four red herrings before they get to the end, with Lawless and Vagulans trading suspects like baseball cards.

If the episode spotlights anyone, it’s Kessell, which is incredibly generous, but—again—so odd. It’s like they’re walking the season finale, which is too bad, given the outstanding mysteries they’ve had elsewhere in the season.

Still, okay episode; pretty fun.

Enola Holmes 2 (2022, Harry Bradbeer)

Enola Holmes 2 runs a long two hours and nine minutes, but the movie actually leaves a bunch on the table. For example, antagonist David Thewlis has history with both Sherlock (Henry Cavill) and Mama Holmes (Helena Bonham Carter), seemingly separately, but the film never gets into it. Thewlis is phoning it in, gloriously biting off scenery in giant chunks; he can do this part—and well—effortlessly, which is good because director Bradbeer’s not great with actors.

Everyone in Holmes 2 is solid, however. Millie Bobby Brown is a fine lead, except whenever Bradbeer doesn’t know what to do, he has her wink at the camera or break the fourth wall. It’s cute—but for the first and most of the second act, Brown could just be narrating the adventure straight. She opens the film narrating, and there’s always something; why not just go all the way?

Cavill’s effortlessly charming and more than willing to make room for his younger costars, to the point he’s just taking up space. He’s constantly around in this one like they wanted to make him work for the sequel bucks, but they don’t give him anything to do. The film reveals a bunch about Enola Holmes universe versions of Sherlock Holmes mainstays, but mostly just as gags or Easter eggs. It’s awkward world-building.

Louis Partridge is also back as Brown’s love interest, a young lord trying to fight the good fight against the blue blood stuffed shirts. Partridge never really gets anything to do in the movie. He takes a while to show up, then is sort of around, but also not. He’s perfectly good, and he and Brown get some fine teamwork moments, along with romantic ones, but he should’ve been in the movie more. Or less.

Just like Bonham Carter and Susan Wokoma. Wokoma shows up out of nowhere in the late second act like she wasn’t going to be in the movie, but then they needed a combination action and heist sequence, so suddenly Cavill brings her in. Except when she shows up next, it’s with Bonham Carter, and Cavill’s detached from that whole sequence. It’s like the supporting cast is tagging in and out. Got to keep them around, even if they won’t have anything to do until—presumably—Enola Holmes 3D.

The film kicks off with an affable but uninformative recap of the first film. Netflix is assuming you’re binging both pictures. Since the first movie, Brown has gone into business for herself but not seen Partridge, Cavill, or Bonham Carter much. She’s going it alone. And she’s going out of business, right up until adorable street urchin Serrana Su-Ling Bliss shows up at her door looking for her missing sister. Bliss and her friends are matchstick girls, and it certainly seems possible they’ve stumbled into the rich British people killing poor ones for profit.

Ah, capitalism.

It ends up being a semi-true story, which screenwriter Jack Thorne (with story co-credit to director Bradbeer) does an atrocious job integrating. Too many important things in Holmes seem shoe-horned in, with Bradbeer assuming Brown making a joke or Cavill grinning will cover. The film’s a case study in charm only getting you so far.

Decent, thankless supporting turn from Adele Akhtar as Enola Universe Lestrade, and an excellent bit performance from Sharon Duncan-Brewster as another unappreciated Victorian woman. Hopefully, they’ll bring Duncan-Brewster back too.

If Enola 2 had been twenty minutes shorter, it probably would be more successful. The mystery investigation goes on about ten minutes too long. But then it also needs another twenty minutes in the first act, probably. Thorne and Bradbeer don’t flop, but they need more substance for the cast. Not everyone can chaw sets like Thewlis.