Glass Onion is not a particularly good murder mystery, but is an extremely fun broad comedy. In that sense, I think it's a natural sequel to Knives Out, which was slightly better of a murder mystery [1] but slightly worse of a comedy. I found it remarkable how prescient the script was (you can accuse it of being broad and too of-its-moment, but leveling that criticism in 2022 at a script written in 2020 is revealing in its own way!)
I think the only sincere critique I would level (besides the bluntness of its social barbs, which is more of a critique of Rian Johnson than his craft) is that the final act fell a little...flat? Pat? It felt very Netflix. The subtext (destroy the things until you find the thing you can't destroy!) turned text was nice, but the CGI explosions and lack of actual long-term consequence or pay-off just seemed...neat in a way that left me a bit unsatisfied.
All of that is quibble, though. This was fun. I had a blast from the first minute on. Dave Bautista continues to be a surprising joy in everything that I've seen him in. A perfect movie to watch on Christmas with a drink or two in your system.
My litmus test is one that biases towards Agatha Christie: could you have reasonably guessed the various twists and conclusions given the information provided? This is why Poirot is the gold standard, because the answer is almost always yes. ↩︎
★★★★
