Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery is a weird one for me. I liked the mystery better than the first movie (wild though it gets) but that being said…
Character wise I think I preferred the first movie. And honestly I think this one is overhyped too. Like people are calling this an Oscar contender and it was fun but to me it’s not in the top ten of the year.
So in this one we follow Benoit Blanc to a private island in Greece where a billionaire is throwing a murder mystery party for his closest friends.
And he’s going to be the murder. At least that’s the plan. But frankly I’d have been okay with most of them dying. Penny and Whiskey could live and also Claire and Lionel because I seriously thought there was something going on between them. Which I would have preferred to Kate Hudson and Dave Bautista’s characters who felt like they were getting the lion’s share of the time of that group.
And maybe that’s my problem…
The family in the first movie (while cliched) didn’t feel as over the top as this bunch. They felt believably like a family and again with some exception I didn’t buy it here. The Birdie and Cody characters (Hudson and Bautista) I actually felt like I was being hit over the head. I’ll give you that Birdie had a nice moment near the end but too little to late.
And I do kind of have to nitpick why Kathryn Hahn looked like a mess compared to everyone else even before the shit hit the fan. Could they not brush her hair or try a little harder? Edward Norton was fine to as the billionaire. Somehow while over the top and cliched it felt a little less like he was hitting me over the head than the other two.
I have to say once again I’m not sure why Benoit is apparently a world-famous Detective in this world.
All the performances are fine while Janelle Monae is especially good- her character really winds up carrying a lot of big things in the film and I think she pulls it off nicely. I do think there’s a distracting amount of cameos in this one though! And Craig’s accent wasn’t as jarring. I thought maybe he had calmed it down but then again competing with some of the others maybe it just felt more normal.
Honestly overall? It’s fun. Good performances. Interesting mystery- although some of the things surrounding it has some big flaws like the first one. Also honestly? Overhyped. Netflix paid way too much for these movies.
Recommend: Yes.
All my complaints aside like I said. It was fun. And honestly I wouldn’t mind being on a private island in Greece somewhere right now- even if it was at the behest of an obnoxious billionaire. (I mean it would have to be after all.) 🙂