The Step Brothers are reunited – this time playing the world’s greatest consulting detective and his loyal biographer – as Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly star as Holmes & Watson.
Holmes & Watson is head-scratchingly unfunny. Filled to busting with talent and potential that, say in the hands of Aardman animation, might flourish as well as it should, but here it all falls disappointingly flat.
"Holmes & Watson" is one of those movies that goes beyond unfunny and into a comedy-cubist zone, where jokes are no longer recognizable and laughter is philosophically impossible.
But even beyond wasting the talents of Ferrell and Reilly, writer-director Ethan Coen piles on one stupid anachronistic joke after another throughout the movie and then doesn't even bother to take them to their logical climaxes.
Puerile, imbecilic and imbued with the kind of casual 1970s sitcom homophobia that reads all male friendships as somehow suspect, this slack-jawed grossout comedy represents the nadir of Conan Doyle adaptations.