The opening of “Holmes & Watson,” the new comedy starring Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly, involves a boy kissing a donkey’s rear end.

Believe it or not, the movie, directed by Etan Cohen, then goes even more lowbrow. Its script is replete with masturbation jokes, a lengthy vomit scene and a bizarrely sensual chess match.

So the critical rejection of this film, which reimagines Sherlock Holmes (Ferrell) and his compadre, Dr. Watson (Reilly), from the Sir Arthur Conan Doyle books, as dundering fools, might have been expected. (It didn’t have advance screenings for critics, which is usually Hollywood code for “This isn’t one of our finest.”)

The initial reviews were not kind. Neither were subsequent ones. As of Sunday, Rotten Tomatoes rated it at 9 percent fresh, up from 0 percent from the initial batch. Reviewing the film for The New York Times, Ben Kenigsberg wrote that “smuggling in booze to dispel the sense of dull routine could only help.” Released on Christmas, the film took in $7.3 million over the weekend for an estimated total of $19.7 million in ticket sales. The movie’s budget was $42 million.