Glass Onion sees writer/director Rian Johnson (Star Wars: The Last Jedi) return to the now-franchise he kicked off in 2019. Knives Out released to box office success and huge critical acclaim, earning an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Screenplay.
That very screenplay took Johnson 11 years to crack. How then, you might ask, could he possibly hope to reach the same level of quality in a fraction of the production time, amidst a global pandemic and worldwide shutdowns?
Well? Always bet on Blanc.
Johnson has crafted a film that’s dense, smart, laugh out loud funny and threatens at every opportunity to surpass the first. On paper it’s a whodunnit, but to pigeonhole it into one genre would be doing it a disservice.
Daniel Craig is the sole returning cast member, lending his faux-southern drawl once more to Benoit Blanc, a postmodern Poirot who steals almost every scene he’s in.
We join him at the start of the movie in a state of inertia, at the height of the Covid lockdown longing for the thrill of a case. It isn’t long however before he gets his wish, and soon joins a colorful cast of characters in Greece, at the titular Glass Onion, for our next adventure.
To say much more would be to ruin the fun; experience this film as ignorantly as possible. Johnson peppers the script with clues, and enough fantastic uses of Chekhov’s Gun that they should consider renaming the technique after him. Some of the clues you might reward yourself for spotting, but it’s almost moot. The thrill here isn’t necessarily in putting the pieces of the puzzle together yourself. Rather, it’s in sitting back and watching them be assembled in front of you.
The cast, while not quite as memorable as last time, all do solid work here. Janelle Monáe is the clear standout, and Edward Norton has fun with his Elon Musk-esque character.
Glass Onion is fantastic. Rian Johnson has achieved the impossible with a film that’s bigger, twistier, funnier, and somehow better than the first. The tightrope-walk the movie balances at Johnson’s hand is maddeningly impressive and makes us desperate for more adventures.
Where Blanc goes next remains to be seen. One thing’s for sure though, it won’t be quite where we think it will.
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