The real crime in Holmes & Watson is the waste of the supporting cast. Sure, Will Ferrell (as Sherlock Holmes) and John C. Reilly (as John Watson) offer nothing close to the improvisatory brilliance of their best collaboration (Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby), instead trying to pump life into set pieces built on lazy gross-out humor and comic violence. But when a Sherlock Holmes spoof is graced with the likes of Ralph Fiennes, Steve Coogan, Kelly Macdonald, Rob Brydon, and Rebecca Hall and manages maybe five laughs among them, someone should be arrested. (At least Lauren Lapkus seems to be having fun in the background as Holmes’ love interest, a woman who thinks she’s a cat.)
