Editor’s Note: This article contains spoilers for “Enola Holmes 3.”
The Enola Holmes franchise has had a long run. The first movie came out in 2020 and the third installment in the series was released on July 1. “Enola Holmes 3” immediately follows the events of the first two, where young detective Enola Holmes (Millie Bobby Brown) is about to be married to her investigative partner, Lord Tewkesbury (Louis Partridge). The two are set to be wed on the island of Malta, when Enola’s brother, Sherlock Holmes (Henry Cavill), and Tewkesbury’s mother (Hattie Morahan) are suddenly kidnapped.
This kidnapping immediately sets the stakes for both Enola and Tewkesbury, who are both at risk of losing a close family member. With their marriage already in jeopardy, the two once again join together to solve the mystery behind the kidnappings.
A big credit to this movie is how politically charged its plot is, even if its primary political struggle is fictional. The main antagonist, Professor Moriarty (Sharon Duncan-Brewster), is motivated by a crime committed in Afghanistan, where the British empire used Maltese soldiers to scapegoat their war crimes. The Maltese soldiers were wrongfully prosecuted and accused of stealing Afghan gold, which in reality was smuggled for the British empire in an army-wide cover up. The political undertones of this movie point out the hypocrisy of most historical retellings — which are often written from the winner’s perspective and undermine the extent of oppression experienced by minority nations.
This concept is executed in a way that is symbolic rather than in-your-face. The movie points out the fact that Enola’s family, who wasn’t involved in the Malta incident, was at some point in history involved in uprooting minorities and contributing to their oppression. It nails down the idea that being complicit in oppression, even when not necessarily taking a front-facing role, still puts you in the position of an oppressor.
While the political symbolism was well implemented as an undertone, the surface level plot itself lacked twists and unpredictability. As a protagonist, Enola herself dodges the necessary conflict that would give her story proper stakes.
Enola has what is referred to as plot armor, which means she avoids conflict and real consequence through convenient timing that prevents her from being truly harmed. There’s no real threat or conflict when Enola is only allowed to be in danger for all of 15 seconds. In the scene where she is hung by a noose in an abandoned tunnel, her mother miraculously saves her despite being established as a rogue refugee whose whereabouts are unknown. After the fact, the film reveals that she simply happened to be in the area, not even following Enola in specific. These convenient events undermine the suspense of danger, as viewers are acutely aware that Enola’s plot armor will protect her. It feels as if the stakes are a lot lower when the threat isn’t palpable.
The plot also just falls into place — Enola simply figures everything out with ease over the span of an hour and 38 minutes. Her deductive skills are to be assumed, as she is a renowned detective, but she barely goes through any trial and error. Rather, she discovers secret motives, makes a plan to end them and succeeds.
For example, Professor Moriarty is motivated by the stolen Afghan gold, which Enola figures out simply by finding a map in a record room. From there, she puts together the entire plot that had been building up during the movie. She and her mother just break into the military base, take a soldier hostage and gain information from the record room. Variations of this sequence happen throughout the entire movie, which further undermine the already underwhelming presence of real consequence in the film.
The characters within the film fall flat as well. The beloved dynamic between Enola and Tewkesbury feels more like an afterthought than a center focus. This is ironic considering the film opens with their nuptials, only for the rest of the film to disregard their dynamic. Even with his mother being kidnapped, Tewkesbury almost feels side swept the whole film. His scenes usually consist of him pining for Enola then leaving; his role in the investigation serving little as well. He appears in the final fight scene with a gun, though he doesn’t do much beyond that. He appeared much more like a side character than his original position as Enola’s romantic and investigative partner.
Professor Moriarty, meanwhile, has the potential to be a wonderful antagonist. She is complex, with moments motivated by vengeance, rage and her own emotional instability. However, these are only briefly implemented in some scenes and are often disrupted by Enola’s plot armor. Had Moriarty been allowed her proper screentime and character display, she would have given the film the stakes and depth needed to make it engaging, beyond the profound historical undertones.
There is likely no point during “Enola Holmes 3” that a viewer can’t predict what happens next. The plot is bare bones, just going through the motions until Enola saves the day, with zero casualties and barely any pushback from the antagonist or her allies. Despite this, the movie does a good job at spreading awareness about the historical oppression of minorities and how history often rewrites these events. The movie has a powerful message with a shallow plot execution, which makes it a decent watch, but definitely not a masterpiece.
Audrey Phoukong is an Arts & Entertainment Staff Writer for the summer 2026 quarter. She can be reached at aphoukon@uci.edu.
Edited by Travis Foley and Tracy Sandoval.
