We’re at a bit of a crossroads for Millie Bobby Brown. Stranger Things ended on the final day of 2025, after five seasons over a very distended nine years, and if the third instalment of her Enola Holmes series on Netflix is not received well, that could end, too.

Nancy Springer, author of the series of books that inspired these movies, has ten total Enola Holmes novels, so there’s still a wellspring of potential material for further sequels. However, Netflix is a business, so if the bloom is even slightly off the rose for this series – or for Brown herself – then they may not make them, as expensive as each one is. Never mind that three is a perfectly acceptable number of movies for any series, so Enola Holmes 3 would not even particularly have to be a failure for them to close up shop.

The bloom shouldn’t be off the rose for Brown, but her ten years in the spotlight, which have left her still at a mere 22 years of age, have been, shall we say, tumultuous. An instant hit with fans for her portrayal of Eleven in Stranger Things, Brown was, predictably, forced to grow up too quickly, and became the centre of online discussions about her appearance, in addition to just the normal tabloid gossip. However, even after the wars, she’s still as charismatic as ever, as capable of making facial expressions that run the gamut, sharing with each other an effortless ability to charm and disarm us.

All of this is a fairly academic side note to whether Enola Holmes 3 is actually good. And the answer is, well, it’s about the same amount of good as Enola Holmes 2, which is to say slightly worse than the original Enola Holmes. For her sake, let’s hope Brown has a few more tricks up her sleeve, since she hasn’t really been able to break out of making movies for streamers – mostly Netflix – in the decade since she first broke out.

Enola Holmes is, of course, the younger sister of Sherlock Holmes (Henry Cavill), who has lingered in the mid ground – not quite the background, not quite the foreground – of each of her previous adventures. His participation from a sleuthing perspective is least evident in Enola Holmes 3, as the central mystery involves Enola trying to solve his kidnapping. Both Sherlock and the mother of her betrothed, Lord Tewkesbury (Louis Partridge), have gone missing, assumed kidnapped, during the couple’s wedding in Malta. In the struggle that ensued in Sherlock’s chambers, he seems to have left clues to where he went in morse code on his mirror. Now it’s up to Enola to follow a series of mysterious figures, who keep dying, in trying to find both her brother and Lady Caroline Tewkesbury (Hattie Morahan).

But it’s never that simple, is it? Enola was already running late for the ceremony when she discovered Sherlock had gone missing, and her no-show might mean more than just being otherwise indisposed. She’s not sure if she really wants to settle down and marry, since she doesn’t know if her career as a criminal investigator can coexist with the role of being a lady, as in, the wife of a lord. Her mother and wanted criminal Eudoria Holmes (Helena Bonham Carter) is also on the scene, as is Sherlock’s loyal partner, Dr. John Watson (Himesh Patel). Of course, hovering over the whole affair is the Sherlock rival who first showed her face at the end of the last instalment, Professor Moriarty (Sharon Duncan-Brewster).

Perhaps the best indication of where we find ourselves with this series is this last character, Moriarty. The character was no part of the first film, and she only made a brief appearance near the end of Enola Holmes 2, working well in small quantities, like a strong spice used judiciously. Here the spice is scattered haphazardly over the whole film, as Moriarty keeps showing up, and loses a little bit of her air of mystery with each new appearance. We tend to think of Moriarty as, if anything, even more clever than Sherlock Holmes, even more above the fray than the typically unflappable Sherlock. As played by Duncan-Brewster, Moriarty certainly displays ample cleverness through the somewhat laborious schemes the narrative unveils. But she also spends a lot of time seeming more angry and/or disgusted than that assumed unflappable air would suggest, and that makes her hissing presence wear thin on us.

The actual mystery in the story, perhaps never the strength of these films, feels even a bit more perfunctory this time. It involves purloined gold from the Battle of Khost in Afghanistan, and it involves useful themes related to British imperialism. However, the actual detective work used to lead Enola to the gold – that’s hardly a spoiler – feels underbaked enough that when she pulls up a chest attached to a chain, it seems too simple by half. Which makes the fact that Moriarty needed to manipulate Enola into achieving this outcome also a bit dubious, especially when we’ve got this idea of Moriarty as a criminal mastermind.

Fortunately, this is still a very game, agreeable cast, and that takes a movie like Enola Holmes 3 a long way. The original key to Brown’s star power was how much she made us empathise with Stranger Things’ scientific guinea pig with the shaved head, and she’s always been able to do that wearing this series’ Victorian garb in this series’ lighter and more comedic tone. Patel is probably the best supplemental asset in this cast, as he’s got a whimsical quality while also serving the indispensable function of Enola’s sidekick. Unfortunately, we get a little less of a dose of the creative on-screen interstitials that illustrate Enola’s detective work, which may be a function of the otherwise smart decision to chop a 2+ hour movie down to an hour and 48.

Enola Holmes 3 was never going to be more than pretty good, and a person’s level of devotion to Millie Bobby Brown is probably still going to be a deciding factor in whether they actually recommend the movie at all. Me, I’m in the bag for her, so I’m recommending it. But next time out, she’s got to do something really interesting with these career crossroads, or even I might jump ship.

 

Enola Holmes 3 is currently streaming on Netflix.