Back in 2011, the animated adventure Gnomeo & Juliet took in a tad under $100 million in the US. That didn’t seem like a great sum, but given the movie’s apparently low budget, I’d bet it turned a minor profit.

This leads to 2018’s Sherlock Gnomes, the movie’s sequel. Once again we meet garden gnomes Gnomeo (voiced by James McAvoy) and Juliet (Emily Blunt), now a happy, settled couple.

This changes when friends and family members start to vanish for no logical reason. Gnomeo and Juliet join with renowned detective Sherlock Gnomes (Johnny Depp) to find them and solve the mystery.

As mentioned above, if Gnomeo made money, it barely scraped past the profitability threshold. No similar debate greets Gnomes, though, as it pulled in a mere $76 million worldwide with a $59 million budget, a figure at least $100 million below the total needed to go into the black.

One assumes this means Gnomes will end the burgeoning franchise, and I can’t claim I’ll shed any tears if this occurs. While I’ve seen much worse animated fare, Gnomes exists as a largely forgettable effort.

Like the first film, Gnomes benefits from a stellar cast. In addition to Depp, Blunt and McAvoy, the film enjoys performances from Chiwetel Ejiofor, Michael Caine, Maggie Smith, Julie Walters and others.

Gnomes also works better than I anticipated based on its trailers. Those ads highlighted cheap humor in a way that made me believe the film will be nothing more than a conglomeration of butt jokes and the like.

Happily, that doesn’t prove accurate, as the movie actually includes very few of those gags. Not that the comedy displays great sophistication, but Gnomes mainly avoids the lowest common denominator humor I feared.

Even with those positives, though, Gnomes never becomes better than lackluster. Like Gnomeo, it feels like the filmmakers came up with the concept – ie, the adaptation of a famous literary character in the world of lawn ornaments – and they didn’t bother to flesh out this idea in a significant manner.

Does Gnomes come with a plot? Technically, yes, but in reality, it throws out a mix of story points with only a loose connection to each other.

Eventually these lead us to a clear purpose, but that almost seems accidental. Instead, the “story” feels like a melange of scenes cobbled together into a vaguely coherent whole that lacks much real narrative impact.

Like the first film, Gnomes comes from Elton John’s production company, and also like Gnomeo, it comes packed with the musical legend’s songs. These lack a legitimate story reason to show up in the movie, so their inclusion feels gratuitous and more like an attempt to sell records.

Though let’s be honest: Gnomes itself doesn’t exist for any form of artistic ambition. It brings us general animated entertainment for kids, and in that regard, it does okay – but no better than that, and in the crowded field of family films, it fails to stand out as notable.

Sherlock Gnomes appears in an aspect ratio of approximately 2.35:1 on this Blu-ray Disc. Though not on a par with the best-looking animated releases, this became a largely satisfying presentation.

Sharpness usually seemed good, as the movie mainly delivered nice delineation. However, some interiors could be a bit on the soft side. These tendencies didn’t overwhelm, but I thought these scenes felt a little iffy.

Still, the image generally appeared accurate, and I noticed no shimmering or jaggies. Edge haloes remained absent, and I saw no print flaws.

Gnomes boasted a broad, pastel-influenced palette that looked very good. The hues showed nice reproduction and clarity.

Blacks seemed dense and dark, while shadows offered nice smoothness and delineation. It might not have been perfect, but the image remained appealing.

I also felt pleased with the reasonably dynamic DTS-HD MA 7.1 soundtrack of Gnomes. Though a comedy, the movie came with more than enough action beats to add zing to the proceedings, and the mix used these well.

This meant various elements cropped up in the proper placed and melded cleanly and naturally. Music also used the various channels in an active way that added to the mix’s immersiveness.

Audio quality came across as positive, with speech that seemed natural and concise. Music was bold and bright, as the score and songs showed nice range and punch.

Effects followed suit, as these components brought out good accuracy and dynamics, with fine low-end as necessary. I felt happy with this involving mix.

Most of the set’s extras revolve around a collection of featurettes, and these start with Gnome Is Where the Heart Is. It runs seven minutes and delivers comments from actors James McAvoy, Emily Blunt, Ashley Jensen, Matt Lucas, Stephen Merchant, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Johnny Depp, Jamie Demetriou and Mary J. Blige.

“Heart” looks at cast and characters. It lacks substance, though I like the glimpses of the recording studio.

For the three-minute, 10-second All Roads Lead to Gnome, we hear from Merchant, Jensen, Lucas, Demetriou, Blunt, McAvoy, head of story Robert Stevenhagen, animation director Eric Leighton, production designer Karen DeJong, producer Steve Hamilton Shaw, and director John Stevenson.

“Roads” looks at the movie’s London locations. It gives us a handful of useful details but it’s way too short to tell us much.

Next comes Gnome Wasn’t Built In a Day, a five-minute, 59-second reel with Stevenson, Leighton, Shaw, character designer Gary Dunn, producer Carolyn Soper, and 2D animator Neil Boyle. “Day” gives us information about the film’s character design, and it becomes a fairly informative piece.

Miss Gnomer takes up four minutes, nine seconds and features Merchant, Stevenson, Blige, music supervisor Nick Angel, music producer Harvey Mason Jr., and executive producer/composer Elton John. We get some notes about the movie’s music in this decent but superficial reel.

A Music Video for “Stronger Than I Ever Was” lasts four minutes, five seconds. It pairs the song with movie clips to become a wholly uninspiring affair, though the tune’s not bad.

With How to Draw, we find four tutorials. We get these for “Sherlock Gnomes” (5:11), “Watson” (5:05), “Moriarty” (5:05) and “Goons” (3:19). Character designer Gary Dunn teaches us how to sketch the various characters in these fun clips.

Finally, Animating Sherlock Gnomes spans a mere one minute, 36 seconds. It takes us through the five stages of animation required for a film of this sort. Despite the reel’s brevity, it provides a surprisingly good overview of the basics.

A second disc brings us a DVD copy of Gnomes. It includes none of the Blu-ray’s extras.

To be sure, Sherlock Gnomes could work a lot worse than it does, but that doesn’t make it an actual good movie. It offers 86 watchable minutes of animated fluff that never threatens to become better than mediocre. The Blu-ray boasts largely appealing picture and audio along with a passable set of supplements. Gnomes offers more entertainment than I expected but it remains forgettable at best.