Written And Directed by Rian Johnson
Benoit (to Miles): "You dimwitted... brainless... JACKASS! Your one murder with any panache at all, and you stole the whole idea from me!"
It's interesting that in spite of the first movie being an actual hit in theatres, the decision for this sequel (and the upcoming one) would be to give it a limited theatrical release in favour of Netflix having dibs on it.
Once again, we're thrown into the world of private investigator, Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig). Only this time, it's in the era of COVID and Benoit was barely amused by online chatter with famous faces. The man needed a case. Luckily for him, he got one in the form of a puzzle.
Heading off to a Greek island, to a place owned by technology company owner and billionaire, Miles Bron (Edward Norton), Benoit had to solve the mystery of Miles's death. Except he wasn't dead and it was more of an extraordinary game of Clue that Benoit disliked.
Of course for this game to have the desired effect, we needed a bigger cast. This included Miles's friends - Connecticut governor, Claire Debella (Kathryn Hahn), scientist Lionel Toussaint (Leslie Odom Jr), fashion designer Birdie Jay (Kate Hudson) and her assistant Peg (Jessica Henwick) alongside men's rights activist, Duke Cody (Dave Bautista) and younger girlfriend, Whiskey (Madelyn Cline).
Yet again, a group of mostly shallow and self serving people but the arrival of Miles's former Alpha partner, Andi Brand (Janelle Monae) certainly complicated matters. Andi wasn't happy with the way Miles ousted her from their company and she was less happy that their so called friends abandoned her. She was also wasn't Andi Brand.
Halfway through the movie and the around the same time that Duke died from consuming pineapple juice, it was revealed that Andi's twin sister Helen had hired Benoit in order to expose Miles's many misdeeds. Needless to say one of them being the fact that he killed Andi.
The third act's brilliant. It gave a wonderful deconstruction into the absolute absurdity of Duke's death and demonstrated to Miles that money won't always buy someone out of trouble. Oh and the destruction of the Mona Lisa, giving Miles the type of infamy he wasn't looking for.
- Hugh Grant was revealed to be Benoit's domestic partner, Phillip while cameos included the likes of Angela Lansbury, Stephen Sondheim, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Jake Tapper, Yo-Yo Mama, Serena Williams, Ethan Hawke , Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and Jake Tapper.
- Natasha Lyonne who also had a cameo would later go on to star in Rian Johnson's Poker Face. There's references to Jeremy Renner and Jared Leto.
- Standout music: Nat King Cole's The Mona Lisa, David Bowie's Starman and The Beatles Glass Onion.
- Chronology: May 2020, mostly on a Greek island.
Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery had a lot of pressure to prove that Benoit Blanc wasn't a flash in the pan and it did so with panache. It's so dumb that it's brilliant in spite of Benoit himself would say. Actually, it's really clever and I had a lot of fun with it.
Rating: 8 out of 10
