Who’s the dude in the background with the narrowed eyes and menacing mien? He’s fascinating!
Perhaps the least of the problems with Sherlock Gnomes (2018) is that my Arts Editor didn’t much care for the artwork. She pronounces it as being too plastic. It didn’t bother me so much, but then we’re talking about garden gnomes that come to life when humans aren’t paying attention to them – and, yet, shatter when they’ve fallen from a great enough height.
In act, an exploration of the meaning of a gnome’s entire lifecycle would have deepened the story. I mean, are these spirits that inhabit things made by humans? Things that mimic human-made things? Why? And what does it mean when one … dies?
But beyond that, the primary problems with this presentation have to do with the characters, primarily those of the eponymous Sherlock and his buddy, Watson. Beyond their obvious origins, we don’t really know much about the pair. They’re the sworn defenders of garden gnomes in London – but that’s just a statement with little oomph behind it.
So when they pop up, trying to discover why entire families of gnomes are disappearing in the blink of an eye, they feel very shallow, even artificial. Nor is there a proper parallel with the Holmes of Doyle, because, to a strong extent, Holmes was in it for the intellectual stimulation. No doubt he had some dedication to his clients, but they were primarily sources of intellectual mystery, not desperate victims of crime – in his view. Dr. Watson, of course, provided the humanity that Holmes lacked.
But in Sherlock Gnomes, the investigator and his assistant have this mysterious compulsion to safeguard garden gnomes, creatures that, truth be told, are quite strong, at least until they shatter. Sherlock also has a traditional, if charmingly ADHD, nemesis, but his mania is not the same as Holmes’ nemesis, Professor Moriarty, a criminal equal to Holmes’ intellect. In Gnomes’ case, his nemesis is Moriarty’s opposite, all emotion and crazed evil. Why? We don’t really know why. Moriarty was driven by greed and a profound urge to prove himself superior to those who would imprison him. This guy? I suppose he was born this way.
And the investigators’ link to the missing gnomes, Gnomeo and Juliet, are not much better. They’re stereotypes, without the baggage that came with Romeo and Juliet (but perhaps they were better in the prior movie, which either I have not seen or I have forgotten). A couple who is fighting over neglect after a move to a new, desultory garden, they find an echo in Gnomes and Watson. When their friends and family disappear while they’re out of the garden, they cling desperately to the investigator and his appendage, who are grimly following clues while delivering backstory that is never quite satisfying.
Amazingly, this movie improves after the first half hour. Never mind the cute use of other toys and cultural satire, but simply the fact that there are not one, but two twists to this movie made it better than I anticipated. Not that I and my Arts Editor ever stopped squirming, but the intensity of our squirming wasn’t nearly as bad as it could have been.
As it was, though, while the conclusion was clever, the lack of self-sacrifice clearly made this a story in a very minor key. There are costs to being and doing good, and it’s the exploration of those costs which often make for the better stories. We don’t get that here. Think of Bogart’s portrayal of PI Sam Spade in The Maltese Falcon (1941), most importantly Spade’s agony at turning in the woman he’s fallen in love with for murdering his partner. That’s doing good at a price. And that’s a big part of what makes The Maltese Falcon a legendary movie.
Sherlock Gnomes doesn’t approach that depth of what I’d call analysis. But I think it would be fun for the youngsters.
