Watched it last night. There’s a lot to like about it: Josh O’Connor’s performance was excellent, along with much of the cast (outside of a miscast Mila Kunis who didn’t know what to do with her role and therefore did nothing). The direction and cinematography were both top-notch, and I agree completely with MrDibble about the bold use of lighting throughout. It also felt different than the previous movies, which for me was both a positive and a negative (see below). The positive of that is, for a movie series entering its third installment, the chances of stagnation and repetition are high, so I appreciate that Rian Johnson is mixing it up a little.
On the negative side, I thought the mystery aspects were pretty lame. They used one of the oldest locked room tricks in the book for the main murder, and tried to disguise it with a paper-thin meta discussion of locked room mysteries, but it was extremely obvious who “did the deed” (to avoid spoilers). In addition, the title of the movie and the ham-handed introduction of the Lazarus door telegraphed what was going to happen there, too. The mystery elements of the plot were pretty blunt and unsurprising.
But I think my biggest problem is one that is personal, so it’s not really a critique of the movie itself, but I just found all the MAGA-esque characters and Trump analogs depressing. It was too close to reality and sucked a lot of the enjoyment of watching out of the film for me. And I am well aware that Johnson is criticizing and denigrating those characters, but for me it just made me weary. I chuckled a few times, but didn’t find it nearly as entertaining as the previous two.
(That said, the scene where Kerry Washington confronts Wicks about his illegitimate son and Andrew Scott and Jeremy Renner rise to his defense was amazing. The word salad that comes out of Renner’s mouth was an inspired piece of writing, even if it was depressingly real.
I just finished it. I liked it, but I liked Glass Onion more (and haven’t seen the first one). Right off the bat, I want to say that I almost stopped about a half hour in (somewhere after Cy was introduced) as it got way too political for my tastes. I’m glad that wasn’t really a plot point. I think they could’ve done without it. They could’ve just made him a run of the mill, but non-political (maybe conspiracy theorist), influencer trying to claw his way to the top by gaining clicks through scaring people.
A few things stood out to me. First of all, I thought I was on to something at the beginning with a Chekhov’s Cigarette. I don’t remember who’s it was, but they showed a cigarette in an ashtray smoked by someone that bites the filters. I feel like I’ve only ever seen that (similar to lipstick on a cigarette) when it’s going to mean something.
Next, I have a really hard time believing that they wouldn’t have done an autopsy on Prentice. His cause of death, due to choking on that gem, I’d have thought, would’ve have been pretty easy to figure out.
I was curious about all the butterfly/moths that kept showing up, specifically WRT the doctor. My WAG was just something along the lines of death, but in light of him having a gem stuck in his throat, makes me sorta kinda wonder if, at least in part, it’s a Silence Of The Lambs reference.
Personally, I had no idea who did it or how it happened, but I really don’t go into these types of movies trying to figure it out.
Lastly and I’m pretty sure this is just something I put together in my brain and would be extraordinarily surprised if it had anything to do with anything, but the way they talked about that gem reminds me of The Golden Turd from American Dad.
Interesting! I don’t know if I’ve watched or read a bona fide locked room murder mystery before, but I was definitely surprised by almost every twist and turn, which wasn’t true for me in the first two. If anything, I thought the plot was too complicated to be plausible.
It’s interesting that Jeremy Renner the actor already existed in the Knives Out universe - in Glass Onion, Blanc makes himself cry by using Renner’s “Renning Hot!” sauce.
I am a huge John Dickson Carr fan and I much appreciated all the direct references. Maybe this will lead to more reading of his oft-forgotten mysteries?
I thought the same thing, but I wonder what, if anything, a MAGA viewer would think of those scenes? Maybe a little self reflection? Or, more likely, “I understand why they’re sticking with their guy.”
That’s a thing I’ve been musing about. I’m a big fan of the locked room genre, so I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve been genuinely delighted by a solution. But I’m far from the norm here, so I’m not sure how I should consider this when trying to evaluate a mainstream story.
Same. I have read and continue to read a TON of mystery stories, including plenty of locked rooms, so I am perhaps a little overfamiliar with the tropes. I think I was disappointed here that Johnson, who is clearly well aware of those tropes and literally makes a plot point out of them with the John Dickson Carr book, didn’t decide to add a twist or do something clever with our expectations.
I haven’t seen it yet, but I accidentally got spoiled on a key detail. The spoiler was brief, so I still need to watch the movie for context, but if my suspicions are correct, the general method, or at least the core concept, is a much used staple of the genre since its early days. So it’d be nothing I haven’t seen before.
All three of the movies make fun of MAGA, remember the quote “What were the overheard words by the Nazi child masturbating in the bathroom” From the first movie?
Pretty much. In my case, as soon as Jeremy Renner told Josh O’Connor not to touch the “murder weapon,” then went in and pulled the blade out 10 seconds later, I knew the wolf head was a dummy and that he (Renner) had done it; I said it out loud to my wife with whom I was watching. It’s a classic locked room method - you can google it easily. I did not predict the remote control squib thing, but that’s mostly window dressing.
I’m not claiming to be some genius, I just have read a lot of these types of stories over many years.
I mean, some MAGA were surprised to realize Homelander is kind of a Trump-stand-in on the show. It’s painfully obvious to non-right-wingers, but there were complaints when it became even more obvious in the later seasons.
I had heard that they were surprised to find out he was the bad guy. Remember when they were dressing up like Homelander at Trump rallies? Man, fascists are weird.
I watched this yesterday. I enjoyed it, but feel like it tried to be too many things at once and only got like 70% there for any of them.
I think Josh O’Connor was great, and really carried the film.
As noted in the discussion here between @madmonk28 and @Left_Hand_of_Dorkness , the movie was relying on tropes of a zany, twisty whodunit while also providing sharp commentary. I think Glass Onion did that very successfully. I think this one fell quite short. The movie didn’t seem to care about humor at all, and certainly didn’t seem to want or need Benoit Blanc- who is turned into an almost bitter detective with an unexplored passionate hate for religion and a funny voice. Nor did any of the “suspects” stand out, most of whom had little to no action in the film and were never really investigated by or interacted with Benoit. In fact it felt like Benoit did very little detective work at all.
Many important plot points or objects were telegraphed in obvious/lazy ways. While there were plenty of details that were surprises during the big reveal, those telegraphed elements made the whole thing a bit dull.
And, the police officers seemed to do no police work. The police officer would show up at seemingly random moments and say “we’ve got our man, where is he?” What clues were they looking for? What theories were they exploring? None, as far as I could tell.