Holmes & Watson Review: 2 Ups & 6 Downs

Downs...

6. Will Ferrell & John C. Reilly's Oddly Charmless Pairing

Though the trailers sure didn't look good, the pairing of Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly should've at least been good for a few laughs, right? After all, at its worst this'll basically be Step Brothers mated with Sherlock Holmes, right?

Wrong. Despite the strength of Ferrell and Reilly's prior pairings, there's a bizarre lack of charm and fun to their portrayals here, bringing little more to the table than some dodgy English accents and a lot of obnoxious shouting.

The magic of their previous collaborations is almost entirely absent, with both actors looking as though they wandered on set without rehearsing their lines and just ad-libbed their way through.

Reilly just barely registers the occasional note, but Ferrell is a complete flat-line, and together, they can wring depressingly few laughs out of the set-up.