A few days before Christmas, the sequel to the hit 2019 film Knives Out premiered on Netflix after a brief theatrical release.
Netflix reportedly paid $400-million plus for the rights to Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery and a planned third film in the series.
The Knives Out franchise, a send-up of Agatha Christie-style whodunits, features Daniel “James Bond” Craig as eminent, avuncular private detective Benoit Blanc.
The fake southern accent undoubtedly took a lot of practice, but it does get a bit much as the film’s approximately two hour running time plods along.
The basic plot of this spoofy murder-mystery installment is that billionaire tech mogul Miles Bron (Edward Norton) invites a group of equally caricatured and narcissistic friends to his private island with its ostentatious mansion in Greece.
Chicanery ensues.
The aforementioned ensemble includes Janelle Monae (as Casandra “Andi” Brand), who becomes the storyline’s main protagonist, and is yet another Hollywood film where a principal leading female character gets a male-sounding nickname.
Kate Hudson and former WWE wrestler Dave Bautista (who is having a heck of an acting career) are also among the cast, along with some celebrity cameos.
With a $40 million budget, the movie has top-shelf productive values and some clever dialogue, peppered with satirical pop-culture references.
Warning: Spoilers
Act One offers some ingenious twists and misdirection as it sets up the rest of the film.
Act Two, however, contains a bloated, flashback sequence with so much momentum-blocking exposition that you’ll probably be reaching for your emails or texts on your device.
Even with all the boring verbiage, there are still some plot holes. For one thing , no — billionaires never do their own dirty work. And that whole drama with the mishandling of the napkin, please.
From there, the layered, as it were, Glass Onion content doesn’t get any better.
In fact, it literally breaks down.
Act Three, which otherwise is a letdown, culminates in a stupid and unsatisfying orgy of nihilistic vandalism rather than bringing the guilty party to justice. It’s as if this is yet another movie where the filmmaker has no idea how to craft an effective conclusion.
It’s also a mystery as to whether Netflix execs read the script for Knives Out 2 all the way through before giving the production a green light.
Somewhat off-putting is that the film seems to take place when the pandemic was still at its height.
Although reasonable viewers may disagree, the woke subtext is not blatant, at least by Netflix standards.
That said, as presumably reflected in the script, ultra-wealthy writer/director Rian Johnson, who has an estimated net worth of $150 million, seems to have a low opinion of rich people.
Parenthetically, the movie also displays the most names that you’ve ever seen listed in the end credits, perhaps because of the CGI work involved.
The Reviews Are In
Glass Onion, which was nominated for an array of awards (thereby providing another reason to discount entertainment industry assessments including typically compromised professional critics) currently has an incredible 93 percent audience score on Rotten Tomatoes.
That that may change as more people actually sit down and watch it.
The relevant IMDB page currently gives Glass Onion a more accurate 7.4 out of 10, which is probably inflated by what appears to be planted positive reviews (which is hardly unusual on that website).
As one commenter wrote, “So, in short, this is unfortunately another Netflix movie that you already know it’s not gonna be good when you see the red logo on the poster.”
Another opined, “we are left with a movie too long for its own good and not clever enough to hold your interest when it doubles back.”
Is Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery worth watching? 
Added: A review of Glass Onion, “a glorious vibrant, defiant, celebration of all things moronic,” from The Critical Drinker:
Thank you! I thought I was the only one who gets irritated at female characters in movies and television invariably having male names. It’s as annoyingly cliche as nearly every married couple or single mom having only one child – always a girl genius with an attitude.
Stupid pap not even to the level of the Sci-Fi channel-LMAO!