Full disclosure: I was not a fan of the first KNIVES OUT (2019) movie. While most people loved this mystery comedy, I found it all too contrived and superficial to really enjoy.

So, if you liked the first movie, you probably will enjoy its sequel, GLASS ONION: A KNIVES OUT MYSTERY (2022) more than I did, because I didn’t like this one either, as I once again found it too contrived and superficial to enjoy.

It also rolls out some pretty awful characters, a group of friends who call themselves the disruptors and are about as enjoyable as a migraine headache, and we’re supposed to care if one of them is murdered? We just saw this same issue in the recent Santa Claus action-comedy VIOLENT NIGHT (2022) which featured some of the worst characters I’ve seen in a movie in quite a while. Well, the characters in this movie are equally as awful. Both sets are uber rich, so that seems to be becoming a thing, writing super rich annoying characters, but in both these cases, they were written so poorly that they don’t come off as real people but as caricatures.

GLASS ONION: A KNIVES OUT MYSTERY, which premiered on Netflix this weekend, once again stars Daniel Craig, reprising his role from the first movie as the world’s greatest detective, Benoit Blanc. He may be the world’s greatest detective, but he’s got the world’s worst Southern accent. Craig’s attempt at a Southern drawl grated on me in the first movie, and it’s no better this time around. Craig is the only cast member from the first movie to return, as a new all-star cast plays a brand-new set of suspects, murderers, and victims.

This time around, a group of friends and business associates all travel to the private island of their brilliant friend Miles Bron (Edward Norton). Which gives this one a similar opening and feel to a much better movie from a few weeks back, THE MENU (2022), when a group of rich guests traveled to the private island of famed Chef Slowik (Ralph Fiennes) and who also found themselves in harm’s way. THE MENU is a much, much better movie than GLASS ONION.

So, Bron has a controversial business proposition for his guests, one that would instigate all of them for numerous reasons of their own to do him in. Plus, to make things more “fun,” he has set up the island get away as a murder mystery party, in which they will have to solve his murder. Benoit Blanc also receives an invitation, and the guests assume Bron wanted to include the world’s greatest detective in his game, but once on the island, Bron tells Blanc that he didn’t invite him, which begs the question, who did? Ah, the mystery deepens! If I only cared…

The guests/suspects/victims include Birdie Jay (Kate Hudson), Duke Cody (Dave Bautista), Andi Brand (Janelle Monae), Lionel Toussaint (Leslie Odom, Jr.), Claire Debella (Kathryn Hahn), and a few others. As I said, this lot of characters are about as unlikable and unrealistic as you will find in a movie. I had zero interest in any of them.

There are also a whole bunch of additional cameos and appearances by other celebrities and stars, and it’s all oh-so-much-fun, except that it isn’t.

GLASS ONION: A KNIVES OUT MYSTERY was once again written and directed by Rian Johnson, who wrote and directed the first movie as well as STAR WARS: EPISODE VIII: THE LAST JEDI (2017). He does this movie no favors. He has created a glossy bright colorful movie that will look good playing in the background on TV sets inside your home, the type of film that seems like a fun time if you don’t pay attention to the actual script. Basically, it’s a good-looking piece of fluff that is about as satisfying as an empty plate.

Then there’s the clever, intricate mystery that is simply too complicated to figure out for anyone other than the world’s greatest detective, Benoit Blanc. You know why it’s complicated? Because it’s fabricated! It’s not a real mystery. Blanc goes around making pronouncements that have no basis in fact. He just says things and they turn out to be true, not the other way around. Unlike Sherlock Holmes who used logic and observation to solve mysteries, Blanc uses the “I have the screenplay in my hands” reasoning. He solves things because the writer says he does. We are never invited inside his mind to see just exactly what it is that makes him such a great detective. He just solves crimes.

But there are so many little “in” jokes peppered throughout this movie. Aren’t those funny?

In a word.

No.

As much as I didn’t enjoy his accent or his in-name only detective skills, Benoit Blanc was a more enjoyable character here in the sequel than he was in the first movie. In fact, one of the few things I enjoyed this time around was Daniel Craig’s performance. He actually made me laugh several times during this movie, albeit when he wasn’t trying to solve the crime. Some of his best moments come during random throw away lines, like when he talks about how much he hates the game Clue.

Edward Norton seems to be playing a variation of himself, or at least of his onscreen persona. He knows how to play an arrogant creep in his sleep. Janelle Monae gets a lot of screen time and is enjoyable, as she plays one of the less despicable characters in the movie, but she is overshadowed by the superficial annoying antics of everyone else.

The rest of the cast, in spite of the names involved, put me to sleep, frankly, mostly because the writing was so gosh darn awful. Rian Johnson has written a movie without one single realistic character appearing in it.

For some reason, the story takes place at the beginning of the Covid-19 outbreak. At first, I thought this would have some bearing on the plot, as the characters are all masked, but once they get to the island, they receive a “magic” shot which I guess gives them immunity as they are told they can shed their masks without fear. The pandemic does set up the reason why Blanc takes the case, as he’s stuck at home and bored and begging for a case to come his way, a plot point I didn’t really buy. I mean, crimes are still committed during the pandemic, and there would still be a need for his services.

There’s also an annoying flashback right in the middle of the story, which goes back and fills in a lot of the blanks that the story left out the first time around. While the revelations in the flashback were interesting, the flashback itself killed any pacing the movie had up until that point.

The Glass Onion refers to the Beatles’ song by the way, and the tune plays over the end credits. While there is an obvious connection between the movie and the song, no attempt is really made to connect the movie to the point of the song, which was that John Lennon was poking fun at fans who were reading too much into the Beatles’ lyrics.

Then again, maybe Rian Johnson is poking fun at movie audiences who take movies too seriously. Hmm. Could be. That could explain why he made such a dumb movie.

GLASS ONION: A KNIVES OUT MYSTERY is disguised as a clever comedy mystery, but in reality, it’s shallow and dumb.

I give GLASS ONION: A KNIVES OUT MYSTERY a mundane two stars.

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RATING SYSTEM

Four stars- Excellent

Three stars- Very Good

Two stars- Fair

One star- Poor

Zero Stars- Awful