The Reel Review
Daniel Craig reprises his role as Southern detective Benoit Blanc in this entertaining sequel to the popular 2019 mystery/thriller Knives Out, this time solving a murder whodunit during a weekend retreat at a tech billionaire’s private island getaway in Greece.
Set in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, writer/director Rian Johnson (Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Looper) has created a campy, joke-filled, twisty homage to the whodunit genre where the biggest joke of all is that NOTHING is what is seems. Craig, as our recurring protagonist, again sports his horrid Southern accent, with an all-star cast clearly having the time of its life, leaning into all the eye rolling, scene-stealing “disruptor” stereotypes.
Edward Norton channels his best Elon Musk impersonation as Miles Bron, the pretentious, not really all that bright, tech mogul. Kate Hudson is a dimwitted former supermodel turned yoga pants designer who can’t avoid controversy. Rounding out the cast: Dave Bautista as a “men’s rights” blogger, Kathryn Hahn a politically opportunistic Connecticut governor, Leslie Odom Jr. as one of Bron’s best scientists and a particularly terrific Janelle Monáe, as Miles’s wronged former business partner who seemingly has an ax to grind with everyone.
Featuring time jumps, a slew of fun celebrity cameos and key plot details that seem to magically appear, Glass Onion manages to be both a satirical send-up and an entertaining homage to the whodunit genre – a rare instance where the sequel is actually better than the original.
REEL FACTS
• Netflix skipped out on recouping more of the $450 million it paid for this and the next sequel by premiering it in theaters for only a week in November, before releasing it on the streaming platform on December 23rd.
• Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery was shot at Villa 20 at the super chic Amanzoe Hotel in Porto Hell, Greece, with interiors filmed on a soundstage in Belgrade, Serbia. Rooms at the hotel start at $2000/night.
• The scene with Daniel Craig playing the popular whodunit video game Among Us with his friends was the final film appearances for Angela Lansbury and composer Stephen Sondheim, who died on October 11, 2022 and November 26, 2021.
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