Enola Holmes 3 has arrived with Millie Bobby Brown back in the title role, but the newest review gives the Netflix mystery series a mixed verdict: this is an often thoughtful threequel that still has a few lively turns, and yet it feels like a franchise that is running out of road.
That matters now because the film is not just another sequel. It is another test of whether Netflix can keep one of its few original movie series moving after Enola Holmes was made at Warners and then sold to the streamer during the pandemic. The first film was followed by a sequel that was arguably slightly better, then another that was called an unqualified smash. With a third chapter now out in the open, the question is whether the audience will still show up for Enola Holmes as readily as before.
Brown returns as Enola, Jack Thorne is back on screenplay duty and Philip Barantini has taken over directing from Harry Bradbeer. Louis Partridge again plays Tewkesbury, and Henry Cavill appears as Sherlock in what amounts to a glorified cameo. The setup keeps the franchise’s familiar ingredients in place, including a wedding scene on Malta and a plot that turns on Enola discovering that Sherlock has been kidnapped.
Those pieces still work in spots. The film has intermittently successful bursts of sprightly energy, an engaging-enough mystery, and history and life lessons that are handled well enough for younger viewers. But the balance is shifting. The review calls the journey already starting to grow a little tiring, and that is where the film’s problem begins. It is not that nothing is working; it is that enough of it now feels like repetition with less surprise behind it. The result is a film described as more of the same, but giving markedly less of what worked in the first place.
That is the real pressure on Enola Holmes 3. Netflix has spent years trying to turn big-budget films into durable franchises, whether with Red Notice, The Grey Man, The Electric State, KPop Demon Hunters or Fear Street, and this one has been among the more reliable names in that effort. Jack Thorne arrived fresh off Adolescence and brought Philip Barantini with him, which promised a fresh take behind the camera. The review suggests that change helps at the edges, but not enough to hide a simple fact: the series is beginning to feel less like a destination and more like a habit. If a fourth outing is ever considered, it will have to do more than repeat the formula with a new coat of paint.
