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Sherlock Gnomes: A boring and absolutely pointless sequel.


When an animated movie gets a sequel, I can typically understand why they usually get them. Sometimes they are made because the creators have brilliant new ideas to bring to the table while other times they are made because the first movie was a big hit at the box office and the creators see lots of money in their eyes and feel they can make more with a sequel. In most cases, it's typically the latter, but in the case of "Sherlock Gnomes," it's neither. In fact, I absolutely have no idea why this movie exists. "Gnomeo and Juliet" wasn't a big critical hit nor was it a big box office hit, so why did the heads of Paramount Animation think that giving a mostly forgotten film from eight years ago a sequel would be a smart idea? I really don't know. What I do know though is that this film is bad. Really bad.

A little while after the first film, the bickering neighbors Montague and Capulet settle their differences and move together to London where they set up their garden gnomes in a new garden. The leaders of the gnomes, Gnomeo (James McAvoy) and Juliet (Emily Blunt) are trying to make their garden more comfortable and beautiful for their friends and family. However, disaster strikes when all the gnomes in the garden are kidnapped by a pie mascot doll named Moriarty (Jamie Demetriou) and it's up to them Sherlock Gnomes (Johnny Depp) and his assistant Dr. Watson (Chiwetel Ejiofor) to find them. That's all there is to it with this plot. It's absolutely nothing new.

The story is incredibly boring and dull due to how predictable it is. It goes through every twist and turn imaginable and even led to one of the dumbest plot twists that I've seen in an animated movie in a while. None of the jokes work as well. Although most of the bottom of the barrel jokes seen in the trailer were thankfully not seen in this movie, it's still incredibly unfunny with most being jokes about the characters being garden gnomes. It even opens up with three gnomes arguing over what story to tell using garden gnome puns like "Game of Gnomes" and "Spider-Man: Gnomecoming". I'm not making this up. The animation is totally wasted on this movie. The films computer animation incredibly dull and lifeless and barely has any shiny features to it yet the very few hand-drawn portions are incredibly well done though it did make me mad that it went into this movie. Why of all movies coming out nowadays was a hand-drawn animated scene put into "Sherlock Gnomes"? I mean, seriously! However, the film could have been saved if the characters were interesting and likable, but they're not. Gnomeo and Juliet are dry and tiresome, Sherlock Gnomes is incredibly annoying as is Moriarty. I guess Dr. Watson has a little likability in him, but not much.

"Sherlock Gnomes" is incredibly pointless and pretty boring for an animated movie sequel. Its story is predictable and lousy, it's animation is totally wasted and the characters are all dry and tiresome. I really don't know why this movie was made and I really don't suggest you should watch this movie. Besides, most of the cast of this movie (some of which are Oscar winners or nominees) have been in better-animated movies, the director of this movie also made "Kung Fu Panda", and there's a much better-animated parody of Sherlock Holmes known as "The Great Mouse Detective" which was made by Walt Disney Animation Studios and those are much better animated movies to watch than this mess. Check them out instead. It's rather elementary, my dear readers.

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