On December 23, another long-awaited and high-profile premiere of the year was released on Netflix – the sequel to the highly successful detective “Getting Knives” in 2019. Obviously, after its success, the question of whether to be a sequel was no longer a question. But here the streaming giant intervened in the situation and bought the rights to the next two parts for an obscenely large amount of money — and it was clearly not wrong. This review explains why the sequel is still great escapist entertainment, but a detective story inferior to the original.

“Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery”.

Genre comedy detective
Director Ryan Johnson
In roles Daniel Craig, Edward Norton, Dave Bautista, Kate Hudson, Kathryn Hahn, Janell Monae
Premiere Netflix
Graduation year 2022
Site IMDb

After the coolest detective in the world, Benoit Blanc, evicted from a luxurious house of privileged white Americans and moved in a Hispanic woman with a weak stomach, the cursed covid happened. Now the hero, like last year’s Neo from “The Matrix”, is languishing in a bathtub with a duck and longing for the good times when murders were solved, the lust for life was felt, and James Bond movies were released on schedule.

However, Benoit realizes that it is not time to die, at least morally, when he receives a strange package from billionaire Miles Bronn. She did the same to five more addressees – the rich man’s best friends. These are: Connecticut Governor Claire Debella, scientist Lionel Toussaint, streamer Duke Cody and former supermodel Birdie J. The fifth was Bron’s former business partner Andi Brand, who had a strong quarrel with all the above-mentioned persons.

The mysterious package was an interesting puzzle, a kind of Lemarchamp box without hooks and the risk of meeting with the cenobites. Inside it was an invitation to a private Greek island. There, the organizer of the meeting decided not only to entertain his guests with swimming in the pool and elite alcohol, but also to stage his own murder, yes, for fun. However, when a real crime takes place, that’s where Benoit Blanc comes into play. So we stock up on popcorn.

Director and screenwriter Ryan Johnson is a great guy. Over the past ten years, he managed to create at least a few tapes, but all of them were successful in one way or another. He once successfully disguised Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Bruce Willis and placed them in different timelines. And five years later, he published “The Last Jedi”, which performed well at the box office, but had many complaints from “Star Wars” fans.

“Getting Knives” 2019 turned out to be a breath of fresh air for Johnson’s career, for the audience, and for the dusty detective genre as a whole. While Kenneth Branagh pointedly admired the lush mustache of his Hercule Poirot in the frame, Johnson used the genre as a fertile ground for social and political satire. Meanwhile, he did not forget about the purely genre component – an exciting intrigue.

It was like that three years ago, and it’s still like that. A pleasant feature of Johnson’s cinematography is that it is much more interesting not to surprise with twists like “murderer – gardener”, but to break through to the exposure of the criminal with a fight. That is, the main thing in “The Glass Bulb” is not “what” or “who”, but “how”.

And this approach looks successful thanks to attractive plot twists, rather long flashbacks, demonstration of events from different angles and general multi-layered narrative. It really does resemble the same glass bulb that is Miles Bronn’s mansion. Everything seems to be transparent and clear, but in order to prove the truth, it is necessary to remove layer by layer what is superfluous, what prevents reaching the goal.

At the same time, Johnson once again allows himself good irony, especially Kate Hudson, who plays a dumb glamorous top model, amuses here. But if the first film criticized Trump’s politics, and it was still relevant then, now they are laughing at something that is already a little outdated. For example, over covid. Although the latter takes a little attention.

But the one who gets it is Elon Musk. Not to say that Johnson’s satire is devastating and sharp as a knife blade, but it makes it clear what the author thinks about the modern “genius-billionaire-philanthropist”. And besides, about all those influencers, politicians and other high-status darmoides, who have plenty of luxury, but do not imagine anything about themselves.

“Glass Bulb” gives you almost everything that the three-year-old film did: here you have an exciting intrigue, a powerful cast, interesting satire, and several pleasant cameos. And there are also various cultural references – from the Mona Lisa in the frame to The Beatles song in the title. The tape favors the process over the result, although at times it looks less refined than the first part. Now the main question. Elon, should we expect @rianjohnson’s Twitter account to be deleted anytime soon?

Pros:
good intrigue, interesting development of the plot, excellent cast, witty comedy component, luxurious scenery designed to emphasize some features of the characters, light casual atmosphere.

Cons:
less subtle twist compared to the original, and fans of shocking and unexpected endings in detective stories will be disappointed by the finale here

Conclusion:
“Glass bulb” should be perceived as a decent and extremely pleasant entertainment near the screen and nothing more. And the sun-kissed Greek island makes you want to go on vacation. In the Ukrainian Crimea, for example