Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery

Blanc is back! On New Year’s Eve, I watched the mystery film Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, released on November 23, 2022. Starring Daniel Craig, Edward Norton, and Janelle Monáe, it is directed by Rian Johnson and is a sequel to Knives Out. It takes place in America and Greece and is rated PG-13.

Detective Benoit Blanc is invited to billionaire Miles Bron’s private island in Greece. The island is full of the billionaire’s shady friends who all make their living through his money and have their own unreputable histories. A fun murder mystery party is planned for all the guests. However, the fun is ruined when a real criminal is among those on the island, spawning a mystery to solve. Who is guilty?

To me, Knives Out was one of the better movies I’ve seen in recent years (click here for review). As such, I was excited to see what this sequel would pull out and it certainly did not disappoint. There are many positive qualities to talk about with this film. I’ll start with the all-star cast. While not as strong as the first movie, the cast still gives their all. Daniel Craig gives the same intelligent and entertaining performance as Benoit Blanc as he did in the first movie. He has several great comedic lines that will keep you laughing, but his amazing detective skills will leave you impressed. Edward Norton impresses as Miles Bron, giving the performance of a snobby rich guy who tries to be cool but still fails at that. Janelle Monáe plays Andi Brand, contrasting herself with the others by being angry and confrontational from the start of the trip. Dave Bautista, who has become a more familiar actor for me ever since Guardians of the Galaxy, plays Duke Cody, showing off the danger of toxic masculinity. The last actor I will talk about is Leslie Odom Jr., playing Lionel Toussaint, a scientist who, in my opinion, most represents the clinging to Bron, having concerns, but being unable to act upon them.

The mystery aspect is done in a clever way. Just like the first movie, it takes the classic genre of the whodunnit and throws twists in to keep it fresh. I won’t spoil how that is, but you will definitely be impressed by it. I was guessing so much and was incredibly interested to find out what the answer was. The reveal was very satisfying and made a lot of sense with how the plot worked. I do think there was so much buildup to the mystery starting though, that I was getting a little bored. This is the other thing that I think puts this movie below the first one, which I felt had a much better pace. However, the buildup was also necessary, as several things needed to be established to get the plot going.

If I will elaborate on the story, in that long buildup, we really get who each of these characters are, which is important once the mystery starts. Similar to the first movie, what we get are a lot of rich scumbags being held together by their dependence to a billionaire. Those individual personalities have to be considered later in the movie. The film is set during the early days of the stay-at-home-order of the COVID-19 pandemic, giving it a different life than the first movie. Blanc finally being able to solve a mystery after being stuck home for so long definitely gives him some motivation in the story.

Overall, I heavily enjoyed this sequel. Like with the first movie as stated above, this is one of the better movies I’ve seen in recent years. It teams up an all-star cast and a clever whodunnit for what is sure to be a movie classic. There are also plans to do a third movie with Benoit Blanc, so get excited for that. Watch this movie to see if you can peel away the layers of the mystery!