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Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery
Rian Johnson, who was robbed of an original screenplay Oscar for the flawless Knives Out is not quite as successful as producer, writer, and director of 2022's Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, a sumptuously mounted murder mystery that features stylish direction and an interesting ensemble cast, but the story is confusing and exhausting and I'm pretty sure I had a birthday during its ungodly long running time.
An eccentric billionaire named Miles Bron invites a small circle of friends to his lavish palace in the Greek Islands for a murder mystery weekend. The guests include a disgraced supermodel named Birdie Jay, a scientist named Lionel Toussaint, the owner of a boner pill franchise named Duke, a smart savvy politician named Claire, and a woman named Andi trying to warn the other guests of danger. Also invited to the party is Detective Benoit Blanc, the central character from Knives Out who is invited to the party as well, but not by Bron. When two of the guests end up dead, it's up to Blanc to step up and figure out what's going on.
First of all, I LOVED Knives Out and gave it a rating of , proving that Johnson was a filmmaker to be reckoned with, but it's unclear exactly what went wrong here. Number one, it's always a bad sign when a film with its roots in another film, has to put that film's title in the new film's title. The film seems to suffer from "sequel-itis", which is an attempt to duplicate the success of a film by making a sequel that's bigger and better. Technically, it isn't even a sequel because Blanc is the only character from Knives Out that appears in this fim.
Johnson's screenplay does take time to set up the characters who are Bron's guests but we're never sure whether these people really owe everything have to Bron or if they all have reasons to want Bron dead. And as wealthy as Bron is, it's hard to understand why he would want to set one of these people up for his death, but he does say he's only going to be dead for the weekend, which makes what's going on very confusing. The film flashes forward and back at an alarming pace that makes it hard to know what's going on. At this point, it's pretty easy to figure out what's going and the rest of the film is just very expensive filler, mounted with first rate production values, unlike Knives Out, a true mystery where the identity of the killer had me in the dark to the final frame of the film.
Johnson's skill with a camera is evident throughout, thanks to superb assistance from his cinematographer and film editor. Daniel Craig gives another take charge performance as Blanc that lights up the screen. Edward Norton is dazzling as Miles Bron and Kate Hudson is all kinds of fun as Birdy. Janelle Monae nails a dual role and former WWF wrestler Dave Bautista is a lot of fun as Duke. There are also cameo appearances from Serena Williams, Hugh Grant, Natasha Lyonne, Stephen Sondheim, Kareem Abduhl-Jabar and, in her final film appearance, Angela Lansbury. It's no Knives Out, but there is entertainment to be mined for here.
Rian Johnson, who was robbed of an original screenplay Oscar for the flawless Knives Out is not quite as successful as producer, writer, and director of 2022's Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, a sumptuously mounted murder mystery that features stylish direction and an interesting ensemble cast, but the story is confusing and exhausting and I'm pretty sure I had a birthday during its ungodly long running time.
An eccentric billionaire named Miles Bron invites a small circle of friends to his lavish palace in the Greek Islands for a murder mystery weekend. The guests include a disgraced supermodel named Birdie Jay, a scientist named Lionel Toussaint, the owner of a boner pill franchise named Duke, a smart savvy politician named Claire, and a woman named Andi trying to warn the other guests of danger. Also invited to the party is Detective Benoit Blanc, the central character from Knives Out who is invited to the party as well, but not by Bron. When two of the guests end up dead, it's up to Blanc to step up and figure out what's going on.
First of all, I LOVED Knives Out and gave it a rating of , proving that Johnson was a filmmaker to be reckoned with, but it's unclear exactly what went wrong here. Number one, it's always a bad sign when a film with its roots in another film, has to put that film's title in the new film's title. The film seems to suffer from "sequel-itis", which is an attempt to duplicate the success of a film by making a sequel that's bigger and better. Technically, it isn't even a sequel because Blanc is the only character from Knives Out that appears in this fim.
Johnson's screenplay does take time to set up the characters who are Bron's guests but we're never sure whether these people really owe everything have to Bron or if they all have reasons to want Bron dead. And as wealthy as Bron is, it's hard to understand why he would want to set one of these people up for his death, but he does say he's only going to be dead for the weekend, which makes what's going on very confusing. The film flashes forward and back at an alarming pace that makes it hard to know what's going on. At this point, it's pretty easy to figure out what's going and the rest of the film is just very expensive filler, mounted with first rate production values, unlike Knives Out, a true mystery where the identity of the killer had me in the dark to the final frame of the film.
Johnson's skill with a camera is evident throughout, thanks to superb assistance from his cinematographer and film editor. Daniel Craig gives another take charge performance as Blanc that lights up the screen. Edward Norton is dazzling as Miles Bron and Kate Hudson is all kinds of fun as Birdy. Janelle Monae nails a dual role and former WWF wrestler Dave Bautista is a lot of fun as Duke. There are also cameo appearances from Serena Williams, Hugh Grant, Natasha Lyonne, Stephen Sondheim, Kareem Abduhl-Jabar and, in her final film appearance, Angela Lansbury. It's no Knives Out, but there is entertainment to be mined for here.