RELEASES ON NOVEMBER 23
Is 'Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery' Any Good? Here's What The Reviews Say
Eccentric billionaire Miles Bron invites people out on an island to an absurdist murder-mystery-party, but things don't go per plan, obviously. Director Rian Johnson continue his "Knives Out" series with "Glass Onion," as detective Benoit Blanc and a crew of party-goers get a dose of reality when their murder-mystery-party turns into an active crime scene.
Starring Janelle Monáe, Kathryn Hahn, Leslie Odom Jr., Jessica Henwick, Dave Bautista, Kate Hudson, Ethan Hawke, Daniel Craig and more, can a crew of off-kilter characters keep up their charade in a topsy-turvy murder whodunit? Here's what the reviews say.
What It's About
Edward Norton plays Miles Bron, a ripped-from-the-headlines tech princeling who gets credit for far more inventions than he should. Every year, he invites his little clique of pre-success buddies for a weekend of fun. This time he has planned a pretend murder mystery, in which one of the guests is supposed to have killed him.
Why invite the world’s most famous detective to such an event? Isn’t that like bringing Kareem Abdul-Jabbar to your pickup basketball game? How are dummies like Kate Hudson’s former supermodel Birdie (now a lifestyle entrepreneur whose business is financed by Bron) supposed to compete? Or dummies like Dave Bautista’s Duke Cody, a men’s-rights YouTuber so attached to his handgun that he goes swimming with it strapped to his Speedo?
[THR]
It's On Brand
Rest assured: Johnson isn’t reinventing the mystery movie with “Glass Onion,” but he is having a hell of a time lightly deconstructing it and reorienting it to suit his whipsmart script and central super detective. Perhaps the only whodunit in which its main character will, upon solving the film’s central crime, proclaim it’s all “so dumb!” (and be both right and wrong in that declaration), and all the better for it.
Johnson needn’t worry about a sophomore slump, because while “Glass Onion” holds some resemblance to his 2019 smash hit (stacked casts, lavish locations, Daniel Craig having the time of his goddamn life), this sequel is zippily and zanily its own thrill ride, and Johnson can’t churn these babies out fast enough.
The film loves doubling back on itself to show things from a slightly altered vantage point, along the way exposing fresh details that keep answers ever-so-slightly out of reach—the better to maintain a mood of tantalizing intrigue and suspense.
Did Daniel Craig Go Overboard?
Craig’s shtick was too archly hammy by just a few degrees in Knives Out and here he seems to double down. Some of that extra “now let’s see here” chicanery actually does serve a narrative purpose in Glass Onion, so we can forgive him that. But a little of Benoit Blanc goes a long way, and we sure do have a lot of him in this film.
Was It Too Preachy?
Without spoiling too much of the plot, the film builds up to a howl of despair at the state of present-day America: a capitalist system that protects the self-interested one-percent and their accomplices, as well as a justice system designed to insulate them from severe consequences for their misdeeds. The explosive climax has a certain primally cathartic power, but it doesn’t quite dispel the air of self-satisfaction that envelops Johnson’s screenplay.
TL;DR
Janelle Monáe steals the show as Andi, while Kate Hudson is a highlight of every scene she's in.
[IGN]
And if there’s anything that watchmaker auteur Johnson can do better than anyone else, it’s fine-tuning for maximum effect from the most minute curlicues.
Then again, for all Johnson’s finesse as a screenwriter, subtlety isn’t really what Knives Out is about. It’s a winning combo of satire and sleuthing – Succession with police tape – and a perfect slice of high-calorie escapism. Roll on number three.
[Time Out]
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