Review: Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery

Image courtesy of Netflix.

Rian Johnson's "Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery" is a fun sequel to the director's 2019 whodunit. It doesn't expand upon the original - in fact, Daniel Craig's detective Benoit Blanc is the only returning character - or try to be anything other than what it ultimately is: an entertaining, star-studded comedic thriller with clever twists, some solid performances, and a fair amount of absurdity.

The title refers to the song of the same name by The Beatles, which John Lennon wrote to confuse fans who he believed read too many layers into the meanings of the band's songs. An onion has layers, we are told in the film by one character, but a glass onion is translucent, so what's lying at the core should be obvious to see. Such is the case with this film - although I won't give anything away in that department. 

Oh yeah - and one of the film's characters, billionaire techie Miles Bron (Edward Norton), happens to be a big Beatles fan, and the place where his empire was born was in a bar known as the Glass Onion, where he hung out with his "disruptors" - a group of friends who are invited to his Greek island to solve the mystery of his murder.

These disruptors include a fashionista (Kate Hudson) who has a penchant to get in trouble for making inappropriate remarks on social media, a men's rights activist (Dave Bautista), a technology wiz (Leslie Odom Jr.), a woman running for a governorship (Kathryn Hahn), and the woman with whom Bron formed his company (Janelle Monae) but then screwed over.

At least one character in the film isn't who they appear to be - and a character who ends up dropping dead isn't the one you'd expect. As was the case in "Knives Out," Craig plays up the southern hokum of his character, but at one point we realize that's intentional and for a reason.

"Glass Onion" doesn't reinvent the wheel as far these things go - in fact, there are several sequences in which the board game "Clue" are referenced - but it's an enjoyable murder mystery with a solid cast - and Monae is especially good in a tricky role.

The film is occasionally a little over the top - and a finale that involves destroying one of the world's greatest treasures is, perhaps, a little hard to justify. And several of the characters are a bit underdeveloped - Hahn and Odom aren't given a whole lot to do, but Hudson makes the most of her ditzy character. 

But that's no matter. "Glass Onion" is an amusing murder mystery that's about as good as the original film - and a benefit of this sequel is that it allows another cast member - Monae - to shine, rather than allow Craig (who's also good) to have the spotlight.