The last big movie of the year Glass Onion: A Knives Out mystery drops in theaters. This is the sequel to 2019's Knives Out, one of my favorite movies of all time. So I thought it would be the perfect time to go back and review the original Knives Out. Let’s get started!
The Good:
And for me the best thing about this movie is that it’s just a great twisty turny murder mystery. Where from the very beginning you are intrigued by what happened, who did the murder and as we meet the family learn more about what happened on that night. The intrigue just keeps on building and building. And what Rian Johnson did so well is not have one big twist at the end but a bunch of smaller twists all leading up to the big reveal at the end. So once you think you got it figured out, a twist happens and changes your perspective on things so then you reconsider what happened. And it keeps on building that tension and mystery as the movie goes along. So once you get to the final reveal, and it’s revealed who was the murderer I fount is shocking and it was earned.
From there Rian Johnson just directs the crap out of this movie. Where earlier I talked about him as a screenwriter and how he just adds a bunch of twists and turns in the movie. But him as a director is equally as good. Where in the first half of the movie there is a lot of information presented to you where you are learning about these characters. And that information comes back later in the movie, and he doesn’t have to reexplain things later one he presents a lot of information in a manner where you remember everything that took place. And even the way he shoots scenes or transitions scenes with showing items around the house it’s all done with a lot of talent and just shows that Rian Johnson is a great director. He does get a lot of flack for directing Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi but he is a great writer and director, he just made some choices with that movie that nobody else wanted.
And with this movie you have to talk about the cast and this is one of the best ensemble of actors that I have ever seen. Our three main leads are Daniel Craig, Chris Evans, and Ana de Armas and all of them do a great job of carrying their weight. It’s fun to see Daniel Craig do a southern accent and be so different from James Bond, and he just seems to be having a blast playing this detective. If you’ve been following my blog then you know that I love Chris Evans and Captain America, and having Evans play a character that is so far off from Steve Rogers is just great. He can play cocky douchebag characters like this really well. And his introduction scene in this movie is one of the funniest and most memorable movie scenes of all time. And then the main character is Ana de Armas who is fairly new to Hollywood but did a great job of establishing herself as a future leading lady of Hollywood. And this was the first movie that I saw her in, and have been a big fan of her ever since then. But the supporting cast has a bunch of great actors with Jamie Lee Curtis, Christopher Plummer, Toni Collette, Michael Shannon, and Don Johnson as the family and all of them are great actors that can play their roles really really well.
Another thing with this movie is that humor works, this is one of the funniest movies that I’ve ever seen. Like I said earlier, Chris Evans’ introduction to the movie is one of the funniest, quotable, and most memorable scenes out there. Where right out of the gate with his character you understand that he’s kind of a douchebag. And I love that scene, it is a hilarious scene in my mind. Another funny scene is when Daniel Craig starts going on a rabbit trail about how this mystery is like a donut with a bunch of holes and it’s just great. But every character in the movie gets some joke that makes you laugh.
And I just love the estitic for the movie, the way it’s shot, the production design, and the costume design. It all looks really, really cool. And it helps provide a fun new style and spin on the murder mystery genre. Even if you have this chair with a bunch of knives pointing towards the chair just makes things a little bit more interesting. And that’s the key thing here: all of these little quirks and camera movements make the movie interesting, in a good way.
Finally, I just love the score for the movie and it does a great job of fitting the tone and vibe of the movie. So the score here is very violin based which is cool because the type of sounds violin’s make really work for certain types of movies and this is an example of that.
The Bad:
And the first act of the movie isn’t the best. It’s not bad, but I think Blanc and Marta talk from that point on and the movie gets really really good. And the stuff before that isn’t bad, but it’s not as memorable, flashy, or iconic as the rest of the movie is.
Also, while everybody in the movie does a great job I found Katherine Langford and Jaeden Martell to be the least interesting and least developed characters of the movie, they aren’t bad but they aren’t given as much to do as other characters so there character’s as a whole are some of the weaker ones for me.
Final Thoughts: Knives Out is one of my favorite movies of the last five years, it’s such a great audience movie with twists, great characters, great direction, really funny humor, great estetic, and a great score to all make for a great time at the movies and one of my favorite movies of all time.
The Score: 9.8/10 (A)
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