So, here is the cliché when it comes to writing reviews about murder mystery movies: you can’t write much about them, unless, that is, when you’re in a spoiler-spitting mood.

With Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, writer-director Rian Johnson seems to have a good idea about that mood; perhaps, he is even feeling the very thing, to a certain degree.

Johnson, whose bad trip as a director mostly limits itself to Star Wars: The Last Jedi, is a natural in the murder mystery genre. His last movie, Knives Out (which, by the way was not a Netflix original release), immersed itself in the whodunit genre that lent itself more on to the calm thrill of seeing what was an essentially a good novella playout on the screen — ie it didn’t entertain the fake dramatics found in murder-thriller movies.

In Glass Onion — which serves both as a metaphor in the movie, and a wink-nudge reference to The Beatles song (which, unexpectedly, plays out in the end credits) — we have a conventional Agatha Christie setting: someone in a gathering of people will get murdered, and mostly everyone will have a motive.

Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery doesn’t profess to bend and break stereotypes but embraces them

Miles (Edward Norton) is a billionaire eccentric who flaunts his money by showcasing works of art to hide his own artlessness (he has rented the actual Mona Lisa painting for the weekend). On the brink of launching a miracle product that will revolutionise the clean energy sector, he invites his troop of “friends” to his far-off island getaway for a little R&R.

These are annual trips, and Miles prides himself as a man of mysteries. The qualifier for getting the invite involves solving an impossibly designed mystery box, and only select boxes are made for the participants. So, when Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) gets a box and ends up on the island, the assembly is borderline confounded, much less intrigued.

Miles (as we’ve seen in the trailer), is hosting a weekend getaway with a murder-mystery theme. He will die — though not literally, just as a participant — and the others will find the killer.

It will be a fun romp and Miles confesses the mystery will be a tough nut to crack; it was, after all, written by Gillian Flynn, he says. Flynn is the author of Sharp Objects, Dark Places and Gone Girl; popular novels that have been ported over to film and television with varying degrees of success.

Benoit, whose Kentucky drawl sounds more and more like Foghorn Leghorn (the smart-alecky white rooster from Warner Bros cartoons), a happy participant, is not impressed; in fact, he is a bit of a party-pooper. He thinks Miles has invited a killer in their midst — and it could be anyone of his buddies.

The limited assembly of players include: a model-turned-fashion mogul (Kate Hudson), a cautiously idealistic scientist (Leslie Odom Jr.), a muscle flexing, overly tattooed men’s rights social media influencer (Dave Bautista), and the governor of Connecticut (Katherine Hahn) who is handling her kids and works from home (the story is set in 2020, during the Covid-19 surge), and a hippie slacker (Noah Segan), who just happens to be there for no reason at all.

Tagging along with the lot is Bautista’s character’s girlfriend and Hudson’s assistant-cum-PR manager (Madelyn Cline and Jessica Henwick), and the irked participant they didn’t expect: Andi (Janelle Monáe) — Miles’ former business partner who has been unceremoniously kicked out of the company.

The cast has fun playing these routine archetypes — though not as much as Craig and Johnson. The set-up, even the climax, might be a bit of a cliché (it is always the case in the latter part, when the mystery unfolds itself), but the high jinx-laden screenplay has one sole intention: of turning Agatha Christie’s oft-copied idea into a genuinely captivating, fast-paced, very silly short story told within the confines of a motion picture.

See, Glass Onion doesn’t profess to bend and break stereotypes; it embraces them. The plot, however, is as untaxing on the brain as it is miniscule. By the end, despite the high level of enjoyment — the movie is really, really fun (sans a couple of whippy arc-shots lensed by Steve Yedlin) — one feels that this is a space-filler adventure in what is definitely one of the best, original, new film franchises out there.

Streaming on Netflix, Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery is rated suitable for ages 16 and above

Published in Dawn, ICON, january 1st, 2023