Jesse Snoddon’s review published on Letterboxd:
"If I ever meet Jared Leto, I am gonna whup his kombucha brewin' ass.
World famous solver of criminal mysteries Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) returns to action in Glass Onion. This time, Blanc finds himself with an exclusive invitation to rich weirdo Miles Bron's private island, where things are not what they seem.
Looks like I'm in the minority, I liked but didn't love this one.
Johnson's sequel relies as much on sleight of hand as the original, replete with twists and turns and a dynamic shifting big moment that shakes up everything. Craig is reliably hilarious as the oddball Blanc and it's a joy to watch him, particularly when the character gets exasperated with the even stranger people around him. Everyone involved is clearly having a lot of fun, and it's infectious for the viewer.
That being said, it does feel a little like it's dropping into the well worn groove the first film laid down. Things take a little bit too long to get started, so the run time doesn't feel entirely earned. I'm personally not really a fan of the structure, which stops things in media res to go back and play them over again to provide new pieces of information we may not have picked up on the first go around that we can use for clues (even though I get it's like the layers of the onion and deliberate). The script relies a lot on recontextualizing things we've already seen. As indicated by the strong critical reception, this works well for most people, it just isn't my favourite way to tell a story. I also found it felt a little too self consciously cool at points. Where the first film felt like an collection of eclectic weirdos linked by family ties, I could feel the actors overpower their characters at a lot of points in this one. It felt like the joke was often "look at Kate Hudson doing or saying outrageous things" or "can you believe Dave Bautista agreed to play a horrible men's rights internet presence?
Anyway, I'll switch negative Grinch mode off and say that Glass Onion is still an entertaining watch that's definitely worth checking out. Particularly if you're looking for something innocuous to fill a couple hours. It's got some funny bits, and even though I just complained above about the actors being felt over their characters, it still IS fun to see Bautista give his rendition on a right wing internet loser, or Norton give what may or may not be a riff on a particular tech billionaire who is in the process of having his fake image as a genius creative force fall apart. There's plenty to like here but I never found my way to loving it. That being said, keep serving up Craig as Benoit Blanc and I'll gladly keep tuning in!
