Sherlock Gnomes Movie Review (Spoiler Free)

Another year, another unnecessary animated flick for children. That said, can this sequel top the mediocrity that was the first Gnomeo & Juliet? Let’s take a look! 

Genre: Animation / Comedy

Director: John Stevenson

Cast: Johnny Depp, Emily Blunt, James McAvoy, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Jamie Demetriou, Mary J. Blige, Michael Caine, Maggie Smith, Stephen Merchant & Matt Lucas

Run Time: 86 min.

US Release: 23 March 2018

UK Release: 11 May 2018

German Release: 03 May 2018

Sherlock Gnomes, also known as Gnomeo and Juliet 2 in its early production stage, is the sequel to 2011’s Gnomeo and Juliet (an already mediocre and forgettable children’s flick) that no one asked for. Produced by Paramount Animation, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and Rocket Pictures, it was released in late March, before finally making its appearance here in Germany. In all honesty, this was a film I was not looking forward to and rightfully so!

Garden gnomes Gnomeo and Juliet need to hire the famous, yet enigmatic Sherlock Gnomes, to investigate the mysterious disappearance of several garden Gnomes. 

Aimed at children, the franchise specialises in giving popular English literature a kid-friendly but original twist, while keeping its literary core structure. In this sequel, the writers tried to combine a Sherlock Holmes tale with characters of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, and this originality is the biggest praise I can give this animation. Other than that, this movie does not have much else to offer.

Sadly, the originality is wasted, as the characters are engulfed in a ridiculous and boring detective story, which has little to offer in terms of intelligence or creativity. Every twist can be foreshadowed; the mystery that is set up is nothing more than cheap trickery and falls flat. At the same time, the romantic core that is driving this film is filled with clichés and over-the-top cheesy elements. It does include a good amount of adult humour, at times bordering on being too extreme for a younger audience, yet as a story, it is too soft and inconsistent to be an adult animation.

Just as with The Secret Life of Pets, Sherlock Gnomes, and its predecessor, they borrow heavily from Pixar’s Toy Story. The basic plot is about garden accessories that come to life once their owners are out of sight. So in a sense, the audience has already seen this movie, just made better. Dialogue-wise, the voice acting is fine, but the dialogues are boring and wooden.

The voice cast is stacked, though one must really think about what the studio had in hand to make actors of this calibre join a sequel to a mediocre animated picture. It is quite frankly baffling that anyone in the cast agreed to this. 

James McAvoy returns as Gnomeo, the titular character of the first flick, and he does give a good vocal rendition. That said, the personality of Gnomeo himself is not that appealing. He is needy, as well as overly jealous, though one can understand it, when looking at his wife Juliet, who is right out mean to him. That said, it is still difficult to connect in any way with the character. 

Juliet, spoken by the great Emily Blunt, is the most dislikeable persona. She is dismissive of her husband to the point where it borders on psychological harassment. Then to add insult to injury, she goes siding with Sherlock Gnomes, to a point even reciprocating his flirting advances, all just to annoy her husband. This is toxic-relationship-display one-on-one, though, nothing that should be in a children’s movie. 

Johnny Depp was included in the cast to voice the impulsive and enigmatic Sherlock Gnomes. A self-centred sociopath, who just looks out for himself. This role is actually the most entertaining one, as it stays true to the character of Holmes. Depp gives a wonderful quirky rendition, managing to draw a couple of smirks on faces. 

While there are studios that use better computer animation techniques for their films, Sherlock Gnomes' animation isn’t bad at all. It is possibly the best aspect this movie has to offer. The design of the garden gnomes is classic; however, it also includes individual design features that flow into each gnome’s personality, but most importantly, the lighting and animation make the characters look as if they were actual living ceramic creatures. The use of a strong colour palette was also a major plus, as it was eye-catching. 

The cinematography itself, though, was simply alright. Included are quite a few panoramic shots of a glistening, animated London and its suburbs, which look breathtaking, but, on the other hand, it does not make use of any techniques in animation we haven’t seen already, and the action segments are mostly choppy and all over the place.

Lately, the trend in Western animation is to compile a track of popular songs and thus base the soundtrack around it, instead of creating an original score for the story. The same goes for this sequel, which uses pop music to which the characters sing and dance, without really progressing in the plot. It was also one of the more irritating parts of this animation, as it lacked absolute creativity and felt lazy.  

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Verdict: So by the end of the day, Sherlock Gnomes (aka Gnomeo & Juliet 2) is a forgettable children's animation, with a boring mystery adventure. There is no real originality in this piece of work, and honestly speaking, there were children in the theatre I was sitting in that did actually fall asleep. The music choice was baffling, using a mix of recycled pop songs instead of creating something of its own, and the cinematography doesn’t offer anything new. The acting is moderate, James McAvoy and Emily Blunt give good vocal performances, however, they are all overshadowed by Johnny Depp’s over-the-top but incredibly entertaining character of Sherlock. The best part of the movie is the animation work, which is jaw-dropping. In the end, Sherlock Gnomes has no reason to exist. It is simply boringly mediocre, and I’ll give it a  4.0 out of 10.