
Enola Holmes 3 is directed by Philip Barantini director of Villain (2020), Boiling Point (2021) and Accused (2023). The film serves as a sequel to Enola Holmes 2 (2022).
I’m not going to write an extensively long piece about the Enola Holmes series and my experience with it, because honestly the first two movies were cute movies that had their charm and that is really about as deep as it goes. Enola Holmes 3 shows that this series has overstayed its welcome and it might be time to move onto something else.
Millie Bobby Brown does a fine enough job here, but the spark she had in the first two movies is very noticeably absent. The performance just does not land as it did previously, Henry Cavill takes a backseat for a large portion of the movie and much like Brown, his performance has gotten noticeably worse as well. Which this is a bit of a shame because I did find Brown and Cavill decently charming in the previous two movies.
To say I was shocked that Barantini directed this would be an understatement, coming off of last year’s highly successful and acclaimed series Adolescence to this is quite baffling. The direction here is incredibly poor and has no idea what it wants to say or focus on, when you mix this in with the script from Jack Thorne you lead to some very underwhelming results.
The theme this movie attempts to tackle is British colonial history which for a movie series that prides itself on talk about important subjects, the movie does a quite poor job of exploring the subject. It makes surface level observations such as “look guys this was really bad” which is quite honestly embarrassing, it truly does feel like studio executives patting themselves on the back for being performative. It can very well be argued that the previous two movies are just as guilty of this (and I would agree with you), but at the very least they were competent movies that had good things about them. With this movie you do not get that at all and the studio executives feel is a lot more blatant here.
Overall Enola Holmes 3 is quite easily the worst of the series and it’s really not even close. It adds nothing new to the series and only brings the series backwards.
Enola Holmes 3 is available on Netflix.
3/10 D-

In The Hand Of Dante is directed by Julian Schnabel director of Basquiat (1996), Before Night Falls (2000), The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (2007), Miral (2010) and At Eternity’s Gate (2018).
In The Hand Of Dante is a prime example of movie that the only question going through your mind is “how on earth did this happen?” I’m going to keep this short simply because this is one of those terrible movies where it’s not even bad in an interesting way. It is a pretentious mess that thinks so highly of itself yet its saying very little with incredibly poor acting.
Martin Scorsese is the best part about this movie and not even him being dressed up as a Gandalf and Dumbledore hybrid could save this mess (he only has a couple of scenes as well, keep in mind this movie is 2 hours and 33 minutes long.) Scorsese seems to be the only one who is able to give a somewhat decent performance, it’s not terrible and it is almost certainly not something that belongs in the looney bin like some of these other performances.
If you want to hear one of the worst Italian accents ever put to film like no further than Gal Gadot. It’s truly baffling how not a single person on set questioned this, she has no chemistry with Oscar Isaac and the movie trying to build her character does not work at the slightest. Jason Momoa and Gerard Butler feel like cartoon characters trying to copy the behaviors of humans (some of these scenes go on for so long it becomes awkward.) Oscar Isaac does not necessarily give a bad performance it’s just one that is so forgettable and feels like a whole lot of nothing.
Lastly the movie trying to capture the whole Classic Hollywood noir of the 1940s and 1950s is embarrassing. The atmosphere that made those films so great is just not present at all here nor is the thrills. There are some admittedly beautiful locations but that’s where it really ends, the movie’s mystery is confused and does not offer any sort of strong connection with the characters or its themes. It’s a complete and total mess that can only be described as a science fair project that was done the day before it was due.
Overall, In The Hand Of Dante is a disaster of a movie that is truly baffling to watch. This is one of the most bafflingly bad movies I’ve seen in quite some time.
In The Hand Of Dante is available on Netflix.
1/10 F

Office Romance is directed by Ol Parker (or Oliver Parker) director of Imagine Me & You (2005), Now Is Good (2012), Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again (2018) and Ticket to Paradise (2022).
Office Romance does not have a whole lot going on here with the exception of the birthing scene that seemingly comes out of nowhere. It’s clearly only here for shock value and that’s really about as deep as it goes. Everything else about this movie is incredibly bare bones romantic comedy cliches.
Jennifer Lopez, Brett Goldstein and Betty Gilpin give fine enough performances, but none of them are quite enough to save the movie from being a chore to sit through. They each get one or two moments to shine, but really that’s where it ends.
The movie heavily relies on its cast to do all of the heavy lifting and carry the movie to the finish line, but completely forgets that you need a good script to help give the cast something to work with and that is just not present here at all.
Office Romance is available on Netflix.
3/10 D-










