Encouraged by everything that has happened in the first movie, Enola Holmes (Millie Bobby Brown) decides to open her own detective agency. However, due to the fact that she's both teenaged and a girl prospective clients don't have confidence in her, and after a few weeks Enola wants to already shut down shop due to lack of business, when in walks little Bessie (Serrana Su-Ling Bliss), a little girl from the work houses who wants Enola to look for her sister Sarah. For this, Enola goes undercover in the matchstick factory Sarah and Bessie work at, breaks into the head office, as Sarah was supposed to have done ... and finds little of consequence but a register with a few pages missing. She also learns that Sarah had a second job as a dancing girl at the Paragon, and was said to have an affair with one of the establishment's clients - but questioning around at the Paragon, Enola gets on the wrong foot of Mae (Abbie Hern), Sarah's best friend and confidante who suspects Enola to be a spy. Eventually, Enola finds a note that might lead to Sarah and her secret admirer's lovenest, but when she arrives there, she finds Mae, presently dying from a stab wound, and trying to save her (even though she was already too far gone), she's captured by inspector Lestrade (Adeel Akhtar) and Super Intendend Grail (David Thewlis), who promptly suspect her of the murder, upon which she has to make a hasty escape - and call upon her big brother Sherlock (Henry Cavill), who's more than happy to help her, especially since he's working on a case that leads to the same matchstick factory Bessie and Sarah are working at, where the owner, Lyon (David Westhead), and treasury minister McIntyre (Tim McMullan) seem to be involved in a case of murder and blackmail. And even though her brother tells her to stay put, Enola goes to a ball where all the suspects are gathered, including Lyon's son William (Gabriel Tierney), whom she has figured out to be Sarah's lover. There's also Enola's own love interest, Tewkesbury (Louis Partridge), who has by now become a member of the House of Lords and is said to do lots of good. Enola confronts William, and he kind of admits to things but is evasive of others - but then Enola is arrested, and Grail promises to see her hang for the murder, and it seems not even Sherlock can help her out this time around ... but their mother (Helena Bonham Carter) can, just blowing a hole into the prison wall, and, together with her right hand woman Edith (Susan Wokoma) they make good her escape. Enola and Sherlock want to go to face William, but find him dead, murdered, and when they tell his love interest, Cicely, they find out that she's actually Sarah dressed up as a society lady, and she and William wanted to expose the working conditions in his father's matchstick factory, which is why she stole the pages of the register from head office - pages that are hidden in the Paragon. But when Sherlock, Enola and Tewkesbury go there to find them, they have to face Grail and company in a rather brutal fight that ends in Grail falling to his death. But our heroes find the missing pages, but enter McIntyre, who destroys the pages - he's in league with Lyon and gets a share of the matchstick factory's profits, that have been soaring ever since they used phosphor in the production of the matchstick, phosphor that's poisonous for the workforce and kills many of thge worker there. But if William and Sarah only wanted to expose the conditions at the factory, who's behind the blackmail and extortion? Now that may be Mira (Sharon Duncan-Brewster), McIntyre's unconspicious secretary who's actually the criminal genius Moriarty, who of course gets arrested on the spot (but later escapes). And what about the girls in the matchstick factory? Sarah, Enola and company have risked everything to get proof and now it's gone up in flames. But they know the truth, and with that, Sarah Chapman (an actual historical figure) organizes the first workers strike ...

Now the second Enola Holmes film is certainly an improvement over the first one, basically because it can allow itself to waste less time on exposition and dive into the main plot right away. And even though some of the elements in this murder mystery are a bit forced - which is rather genre immanent -, the film moves at a brisk enough pace, featuring many action setpieces without ever going all-out spectacle, features a healthy share of humour without ever going moronic, and even some romance without going sappy, and Millie Bobby Brown once again proves she can carry a movie. Now sure, at the end the film becomes a bit talky as everything needs to be explained away, and the strike as the film's one coda (the other is finally introducing a Doctor Watson [Himesh Patel] to Henry Cavill's Holmes) comes across as rather cheesy, but in all, this sure is a fun romp that's bound to entertain.

review © by Mike Haberfelner

 

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