Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery
Watching Glass Onion, limbering up for Wake Up Dead Man, it really does feel like the sequel to an instant classic. This time Benoit Blanc is shipped off to a billionaire’s private island, and the film keeps trying to top itself – flashier tech, louder twists, celebrity cameos chucked around like confetti.
The puzzle is clever enough, but the big mid-film structural flip is explained within an inch of its life, like Johnson doesn’t quite trust us to keep up. Edward Norton’s tech-bro buffoon is fun but a bit too broad to sting, and Janelle Monáe does the most interesting work by a mile. Even so, I never really cared who lived or died; it’s all moving pieces on a very shiny board.
It also revisits the COVID pandemic, a period no one’s keen to relive, and the masks-and-lockdown material time-stamps it as a 2022 artefact. It’s entertaining in the moment, but I can’t imagine revisiting it; this onion doesn’t have that many layers.
The puzzle is clever enough, but the big mid-film structural flip is explained within an inch of its life, like Johnson doesn’t quite trust us to keep up. Edward Norton’s tech-bro buffoon is fun but a bit too broad to sting, and Janelle Monáe does the most interesting work by a mile. Even so, I never really cared who lived or died; it’s all moving pieces on a very shiny board.
It also revisits the COVID pandemic, a period no one’s keen to relive, and the masks-and-lockdown material time-stamps it as a 2022 artefact. It’s entertaining in the moment, but I can’t imagine revisiting it; this onion doesn’t have that many layers.
Mini Review: Watching Glass Onion to limber up for Wake Up Dead Man, it really does feel like the sequel to an instant classic: bigger island, flashier tech, cameos everywhere. The puzzle’s over-explained, Norton’s tech-bro is too broad, Monáe walks off with the film, and the COVID setting dates it. Fun in the moment, but not one I’ll revisit.
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