Rian Johnson’s “Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery”

Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery (2022)

Another modern spin on classic whodunit movies that’s well crafted, enjoyable and about as serious as Craig’s sleuth, Benoit Blanc

This efficiently goes through the clockwork routine of the classic whodunits much like its predecessor “Knives Out”. It’s difficult to say much more aside from a rogues gallery of “disruptors” and Benoir Blanc(Daniel Craig) are invited to the island of tech billionaire Miles Bron(Edward Norton) for a murder mystery weekend which soon turns deadly. It ticks along at a decent pace and the performances are good. In terms of a murder mystery, once the clues are all revealed, we don’t really need Blanc to explain the mystery though it is interesting as he reveals some of the details he spotted earlier which were shown to us earlier; it plays out a bit like “10 details you missed in Glass Onion”.

It does feel over produced at times and there’s quite a bit of rich people fetishism at play, but like Blanc, we can shrug and ignore it. Also like “Triangle of Sadness” and “The Menu”, the film gathers together a pretty reprehensible group of people but Ryan never loses sight of the film he’s making(a whodunit) and doesn’t pander in any way to be taken too seriously. That said, he does find room for plenty of barbed humour.

On balance, a fun movie that wears its heart on its sleeve but doesn’t bring anything new to the table. It has some nice twists, laugh out loud moments and a unique setting meticulously crafted like a piece of machinery (which it is).