Much like with Knives Out, I felt this movie did very little with its technical elements to enhance the story. Save for a flashy climatic scene, the cinematography and editing felt bog-standard from start to finish. The bare minimum required by the story and little more. For that reason, this movie lives and dies by its writing and its characters, which are thankfully pretty great.

Also like the first movie, some key moments here feel contrived, too convenient perhaps, but overall this one felt grander and sillier in a way that allowed these moments to feel campy rather than sloppy. My engagement waned here and there, but the movie kept winning me back.

In a way I’m just glad to see this sort of money and star power thrown at a goofy, fun murder mystery. I feel like you don’t see that much anymore (save for those other ones Kenneth Branagh has been doing which I haven’t seen but I imagine are like this but worse and less fun). Maybe it’s only because Rian Johnson directed a Star Wars movie that he even has this kind of pull, maybe it’s ultimately yet another indictment of the rigid studio system that only lets legacy directors and high rollers have fun with their ludicrous budgets, or maybe sometimes they actually do want to make good movies at least as much as they want those movies to make bank.

This is all to say Glass Onion is a fun time, a great crowd pleaser to watch with the family on Christmas!

Among Us!