Classified (2024)

Netflix’s recent Millie Bobby Brown vehicle, Enola Holmes 3, is a disappointing and confusing entry in the stellar Enola Holmes franchise. Directed by Philip Barantini, the film stars Brown as Enola Holmes, estranged sister of Sherlock Holmes, Henry Cavill as Sherlock Holmes, and Louis Partridge as her love interest, Viscount Tewkesbury. While it deserves credit for its exciting action scenes and attempts to expand the diversity of its Dickensian setting, the most recent entry in the series completely scuttles Enola’s underdog status from the first films that made her so charming and gave a touch of realism to the story of a young, unmarried woman living in London while self-employed as a detective.

Enola Holmes 3 opens with Enola on her way to her wedding to the Viscount of Tewkesbury. A dramatic scene ensues in which Enola must rip off her wedding accouterments and attack the man pursuing her carriage, who turns out to be Dr. Watson (Himesh Patel) asking for help because Sherlock has been kidnapped. In a flurry of flashbacks and narration to the camera, we follow Enola as she abandons her wedding, the hotel she’s staying at gets burned down, and her soon to be mother in law is kidnapped. With help from her mother (Helena Bonham-Carter), her pushover fiancé, the amenable Dr. Watson, and anticolonial Maltese freedom fighter (and comic relief) Mikiel Mizzi (Joe Azzopardi), she saves her loved ones and uncovers a conspiracy of silence around treasure plundered from Khost during the British invasion of Afghanistan. However, Enola’s character has changed dramatically since the first two films, and in some ways lost its effectiveness.