‘Glass Onion’ Review: Daniel Craig Looks Sharp in Hilarious Whodunit on Netflix

There is not any thriller to why Knives Out deserves a sequel. The sharp whodunit killed on the field workplace in 2019, offering an ideal motive for director Rian Johnson and star Daniel Craig to return for the sequel, Glass Onion: A Knives Out Thriller, streaming on Netflix now. 

However even with Netflix money offering the chance, can they get away with homicide once more?

Followers of the primary movie might be primed for a thriller with a twist, which implies the sequel should work tougher to shock — operating the chance of making an attempt too laborious, dropping audiences in complexity or straining credulity. Fortunately, although, Johnson’s second stab at supersleuth Benoit Blanc is one other twist-filled deal with, taking part in with the whodunit style whereas additionally simply being very humorous.

In a primary for the streaming service, Netflix in November performed Glass Onion in main US theater chains, however just for per week. It is streaming on Netflix now, and it is an ideal seasonal deal with to collect around the TV.

Craig returns as louche detective Benoit Blanc, and this time he is journeying to Greece to research a brand new star-studded ensemble. Edward Norton performs an ultra-rich tech bro gathering his buds (and hangers-on), performed by Kate Hudson, Kathryn Hahn, Leslie Odom Jr., Janelle Monáe, Madelyn Cline, Jessica Henwick and Dave Bautista with a gun in his Speedos.

Craig first performed suave sleuth Blanc in the course of the again stretch of his time as James Bond, whereas Knives Out was the palate-cleansing first movie for author/director Rian Johnson after his divisive Star Wars flick The Final Jedi. However now each are free and away from franchise baggage, and each appear to be glorying within the likelihood to play. Craig performs up Blanc’s comedic eccentricities, reveling in post-Bond flamboyance (have you ever seen his fabulous new vodka advert, by the best way?).  

Johnson, in the meantime, delights in layering the frilly plot. The invitation to the sun-dappled reunion comes within the type of a wood puzzle field, and the entire movie is constructed from puzzles inside puzzles. 

This multilayered development provides as much as a massively satisfying homicide thriller. Among the many suspects, Norton is fiendishly bland, Hudson is on nice kind as a loud-mouthed fashionista, and Bautista excels once more at revealing hidden depths taking part in a manosphere man-mountain. Monáe provides Craig a run for his cash as a personality who — no, I’ve mentioned an excessive amount of. You may should observe the clues your self.

Layered into the whodunit is a blade-sharp satire skewering the wealthy people who are sometimes the topic of those sorts of mysteries. On the floor, you possibly can take pleasure in vicarious enjoyment of the golden solar and golden pores and skin, the opulent setting and glamorous outfits — the primary movie’s muted colours and comfortable sweaters appear positively dowdy subsequent to the dimensions and extra of the sequel. However as in different current movies savaging the existence of the wealthy and shameless, like Triangle of Unhappiness, Our bodies Our bodies Our bodies or The Menu, a part of the pleasure is realizing these fats cats are about to get their comeuppance.  

On the identical time, Glass Onion nearly, practically, only a tiny bit verges on being kinda happy with itself. There’s an compulsory Alexa joke and a few humorous however uncomfortable-if-you-think-about-it COVID gags, and simply an general vibe that sails dangerously near the territory of the later Ocean’s 11 motion pictures, the place large stars (and cameos) smirkingly swan a few high-priced trip and count on you to thank them for it.

However Glass Onion incisively invitations you to chuckle (albeit bitterly) at these grotesque entrepreneurs and influencers. The place the primary movie took purpose on the cloistered obliviousness of inherited wealth, the sequel turns its sights on the modern-day nouveau riche: determined social media experts, greedy politicians and deeply inconsiderate tech varieties. 

They’re the kind of people that excuse their self-centered blundering as “disruption” and mistake their success as a product of their very own mystical “genius” slightly than self-serving callousness backed by beneficiant helpings of different individuals’s cash — and loads of sheer dumb luck. It is enjoyable to see them crumble when the knives come out, however greater than that it is a scathing critique of people doing issues with no understanding of penalties and lumbering everybody else with the fallout. Johnson might be watching Elon Musk’s Twitter meltdown with nice amusement (blended, most likely, with abject despair).

The unique Knives Out was an affectionate tribute to the basic homicide thriller style, with a twist. That is a troublesome trick to tug off twice: If you’re watching a whodunit roughly how it will be resolved, and now we’re primed to look at this movie for the twist.

The primary Knives Out may have been a unusual curio, however struck a nerve with audiences and earned Johnson a 2020 Oscar nomination for greatest unique screenplay. Whereas gently sending up the basic whodunit, it impressed a minor revival within the style. (Sure, Homicide on the Orient Categorical did comparable field workplace two years earlier, however do not inform me Kenneth Branagh’s Poirot would have been granted a franchise with out Knives Out’s success.) Netflix was actually impressed sufficient to throw reportedly big quantities of money at Johnson for extra Knives Out sequels. Which leads us to the one unsolved thriller popping out of Glass Onion: Can Rian Johnson and Benoit Blanc kill once more?