Of the various weird things that have occurred over the last 5 or so years (and man, have a lot of weird things happened), one of the more pleasant ones has been the resurgence of the traditional whodunnit feature. Knives Out and Murder on the Orient Express heralded the start of this, and I am thankful for their success, particularly the former, since I enjoy the Benoit Blanc character immensely.
We follow Blanc in this sequel, Glass Onion, as he goes to a the private island of billionaire Elon Musk Miles Bron (Edward Norton) under mysterious circumstances (an invite was sent to him that didn't originate with Bron, although the other characters attribute it to him as the theme of the party is a murder mystery). In the great Agatha Christie tradition, the guests are a motley (if rich) collection of characters: Governor Claire Debella (Kathryn Hahn), currently running for Senate; scientist Lionel Toussaint (Leslie Odom Jr - making a second whoddunit appearance after also appearing in Murder on the Orient Express) who works for Bron; former supermodel/current fashion designer Birdie Jay (Kate Hudson) with her much harried assistant Peg (Jessica Henwick); video game streamer and men's rights activist Duke Cody (Dave Bautista) and his assistant/girlfriend Whiskey (Madelyn Cline); and - most importantly - Bron's ex-business partner Andi Brand (Janelle Monae) who has kept herself separated from the group after Bron's legal maneuvering got her ousted as CEO of his company, Alpha.
All of these character owe a debt to Bron, save Brand: Bron is a major contributor to Gov. Debella's Senate campaign; he helped fund the start of Birdie Jay's clothing company; he helped Duke recover after being banned from Twitch for saying problematic things; Lionel actively works on Bron's biggest project: all of them have a reason to have stuck with Bron over the split with Brand, but all of them also have motives to want to be free of his influence and the potential pitfalls of being aligned with him.
This motley collection of (mostly) horrible characters isn't quite as great as the one in Knives Out - though it does continue Rian Johnson's tradition of the rich being fairly awful and awfully stupid from that first film - but you can tell that certain members of the cast, namely Hudson and Norton, are having a blast with their roles. No one gives a bad performance, save maybe for Bautista in some parts: he doesn't come across quite as mean-spirited as the script calls for in certain scenes.
Really, that is a good summation of this movie compared to its predecessor: Good, but not as good. It does play around with the structure of the story in such a way that makes rewatching it fairly rewarding, but several of the story beats are far too similar to the original. The fact the Monae's character isn't immediately awful is a pretty good indication of who his sidekick is going to be this time around (and Monae does hold her own - on par with Ana de Armas' performance from the first film), and the recurring gag of Derol (Noah Segan) randomly popping up isn't nearly as funny or effective as Marta's puking-when-lying is in the original.
Still, the movie is a blast, with celebrity cameos that work well within the structure of the story, plus an absolutely fantastic ending involving a rather famous painting that went in a direction I never would have expected. While I would've loved a standout performance akin to Jamie Lee Curtis or Toni Collette's in Knives Out, I can't be too hard on this movie's best-in-shows for not being quite on that level (For the record, that would be Janelle Monae and Edward Norton, with an honorable mention to Jessica Henwick).
A solid way to spend 2 hours.
8 out of 10
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