Glass Onion

Glass Onion offers the return of writer/director Rian Johnson and star Daniel Craig for another Benoit Blanc mystery. While it might not be quite as good as Knives Out, a near-perfect film that topped my list of Best Movies of 2019, Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery is still thoroughly entertaining. 

Our mystery this time involves a group of old friends (Kathryn Hahn, Janelle Monáe, Leslie Odom Jr., Kate Hudson, and Dave Bautista) being invited to a mystery-themed getaway by tech-billionaire Miles Bron (Edward Norton). Also invited are Duke's girlfriend (Madelyn Cline), Birdie's assistant (Jessica Henwick), and Benoit Blanc who has been moping around his apartment without a challenging mystery to sink his teeth into. He may just have found it, not in the game Bron has created but the various animosities and jealousies at play within the group.

The sequel offers numerous twists and turns, including a reveal that takes the story in an unexpected direction and explains Blanc's prescience at the party. While not as humorous as the repeated mentions of Hallmark mysteries from Knives Out, we do get repeated mentions of celebrity merchandise and Birdie's (Hudson) cluelessly inappropriate behavior as running gags this time around. The dialogue also lacks the immediately quotable zingers from the first film, but these are small complaints for what proves to another satisfying whodunit.

It's obvious that the strengths of the franchise, and its greatest challenge, will be in recasting actors around Blanc for each film. While there isn't a true successor to Ana de Armas in Glass Onion, the collection of characters provides a different dynamic for cast and crew to play with while teasing a murder that might happen as a starting off point. Craig is still having a ball playing the character, and he and Johnson have time to flesh out more facets of the character a second time around as the peel back the onion to discover the truth once more.

Watch the trailer

• Title: Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery
• IMDb: link