Review of Knives Out sequel, Glass Onion
Glass Onion, a follow-up to Rian Johnson’s 2019 whodunit Knives Out, is a mystery murder-thriller in the vein of its predecessor or Murder on the Orient Express. Much like the first film, Glass Onion places the world’s greatest detective, Benoit Blanc, played by Daniel Craig, in the middle of a host of colorful characters, all with motive to commit the murder that Blanc must solve. With Johnson at the helm both in the writing room and as the film’s director, the dialogue and plot remain witty and humorous. However, while many of the building blocks of Knives Out are present in its sequel, Glass Onion’s final act may leave some of the film’s earlier potential untapped.
The set up draws the viewer in, introducing a cast of interesting characters that range from Kathryn Hahn’s soccer-mom-turned-governor to Dave Bautisa’s radical, gun-toting Twitch streamer as they are all invited to their mutual friend and benefactor Miles Bron’s Greek island for a weekend excursion. Also invited, but not to the knowledge of Bron, is Benoit Blanc, who will find himself trying to unravel a murder mystery as something inevitably goes wrong.
Much like in Knives Out, the film does an excellent job feeding the audience the information they need to start hashing out their own theories as to who may be behind the crime, before ultimately turning those theories on their heads with a big twist in the middle of the film that recontextualizes much of what has come before. With a fresh view on the situation, viewers are once again invited to join Blanc on his investigations, putting together the multi-layered pieces before outing the culprit. The resulting ride is an entertaining puzzle sprinkled with dark humor and light commentary on modern western, and more specifically American, culture.
And while the journey is certainly entertaining, Glass Onion collapses somewhat under the weight of expectation in its final act. The final reveal is the film’s most obvious, and after some of the earlier twists, this comes as a letdown. Perhaps even more disappointing is how Johnson fails to make use of the characters he has set up in this final act, rendering all the suspects little more than blank bystanders as the finale unfolds. None of the characters, save perhaps one, are deeper than their initial impressions and the potential for each of them to have their own schemes or even actions or suspicions goes by wholly wasted.
The film also runs into problems as a sequel, in that it can and will be often compared to the first movie, which will largely be to its detriment. Glass Onion borrows much from Knives Out in its structure and humor, and while it matches the highs of the prior film at times, it never supersedes them. That, coupled with its uneven ending, may make Glass Onion come across worse than it truly is.
Glass Onion is a capable murder mystery with enough intrigue for those interested in trying to solve the case along with Blanc to keep them entertained. The twist in the middle of the film, which seems to be a signature aspect of these films, should they continue, is well done and sufficiently surprising, though perhaps some of the runtime used to explain it could have instead been used to create more tension and conflict between the suspects. The lack of this tension and the fact that many of the characters actually end up being less than they seem leads to a finale that, while in a way is satisfying, leaves the viewer wondering what could have been.
Score: 6.5/10
