Entering into a robust fraternity of cinematic triumphs that includes such highlights as Gotti and Bucky Larson: Born To Be A Star, Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly’s new comedy Holmes & Watson has joined the storied pantheon of movies rocking a 0 percent “rotten” score on film review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes. For those unfamiliar with the site’s system, that means that not a single one of the 15 critics currently being polled for the film’s merits have said it’s even marginally worth the 89 minutes of your life it would take to watch, making this a real anti-Paddington 2 situation.
Now, it’s obviously early critical days for the Etan Cohen-directed Arthur Conan Doyle “homage,” especially since Sony Pictures—for some reason—declined to do early screenings of the film for press. So there might be some professional reviewer, somewhere, who’s out there gestating slowly on their “Actually, it’s very good!” take, although the movie’s almost equally dismal showing on the usually-more-forgiving “Audience Score” metric doesn’t give us much hope.
In case you missed it, you can check out Ignatiy Vishnevetsky’s righteous “F” pan of the movie for us here. Here’s a brief excerpt to wet the old whistle:
“At least it’s in focus” is the lowest form of damnably faint praise one can give a movie. But Holmes & Watson doesn’t even earn that distinction. One might call it a failure on almost every level—that is, if the movie ever gave the impression that it was trying to succeed.