Glass Onion (2022)

[ase]

I watched Glass Onion and the next time I talked to norabombay I asked, "why are people so over the moon about these movies?"

"Because people aren't used to watching good stuff anymore," she said. Okay, there may have been some obscenities in there, this was days ago and I too was more in a "why the fork is tumblr cluttered with gifsets" register. There were probably some casual obscenities. Okay, I definitely asked "why the fork."

The point being: this movie was not nearly as smart or as engaging as I was lead to believe. Yes, it's fun watching Daniel Craig yell at people in an accent as Southern American as Americans trying to put on Australian accent, but Knives Out and Glass Onion are trying to make arguments about the horrible behavior people exhibit around money and race with a white male protagonist who does not manifest visible means of self-supporting income himself. Other than freelance detecting, which might or might not pay better than the average freelance / gig job. The humor doesn't land for me either, beyond the occasional snort at Daniel Craig's character cutting wealthy people's illusions back down to context and reality, which points to a tone control issue in the acting, directing, and/or editing. Or something else I failed to pay attention to. If the general reaction were "it's a solid B/B+" I'd be less hung up on this, and more willing to say this just wasn't for me, but behold the reblogs taking up space when I am scrolling through people's tumblr feeds.

If there's a third movie, it better be about the parallels between the self-invention of Benoit Blanc and Jay Gatsby, or some equally in-depth contemplation of the franchise falling victim to the tropes and trends it wants to skewer.

Comments

[loup_noir]

We watched both and were underwhelmed. The hype is such that I expected something better.

[queenlua]

Because people aren't used to watching good stuff anymore

i think there's something to that, lol

i enjoyed Knives Out just fine, but i remember, the holiday season it came out, i was in the all-too common plight of The Extended Family Wants To Go To A Movie, What Do We All See—and Knives Out really was the best option from what was available. other things were overlong turgid blockbustery things, or too specific to appeal to all the tastes at play; i think Knives Out was successful at appealing to a really broad range of tastes with a bit of a light touch and without overstaying its welcome. worst-case scenario, you've seen some charismatic actors flounce around and had a few tense moments and some funny moments and it's fine! (i have the sense there are probably better movies out there if i were A Movie Person, but i only watch a 1-2 movies a year, usually in the context of This Large Group Wants To See Something, so maybe that's a lot of where the hype/excitement comes from?)

[ase]

Yep. "That's... that's it?"

[ase]

One thing both movies did well was clocking in around two hours. Which is a plus if it's a big family event, I guess? You're probably right about it having a little bit for everyone - and conversely, very little to be a turn-off. Fluffy, if murder can be fluff.