'Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery' review: As sharp as the first, but in a Go-Big-or-Go-Home way, and Daniel Craig rules the rules again

It's in the nature of cinema that when a hugely popular and beloved movie is grand enough, the sequel to it almost has to try to top it in a go-big-or-go-home fashion. For a long time, each new James Bond adventure was more lavish, baroque and stunt than the last. "The Godfather Part II" was darker and longer than "The Godfather", "The Empire Strikes Back" enlarged the awesomeness of "Star Wars", and "Terminator 2: Judgment Day" made the first "Terminator" look like a minimalist jewel.

So how does this apply to "Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery" ? Three years ago, Rian Johnson's "Knives Out" was a perfectly debonair retro thriller, set in the mansion of a murdered mystery novelist, that not only evoked Agatha Christie's panache of at-the-point-of-your-brain storytelling , but expanded the Christie genre into something delectable in its meta intelligence. At a time when comic book movies, action movies, and other forms of kinetic fantasy seemed poised to kill everything else, "Knives Out" was a cathartic reminder that a movie mode we associate with vintage Hollywood - dialogue of airy and witty density, characters that appear with all-too-human flaws and weaknesses, a plot that zigzags and zags until you follow it anywhere - could always take a position right at the megaplex. Daniel Craig as Benoit Blanc, the film's Southern gentleman reimagining a Hercule Poirot/Sherlock Holmes detective, whose wry, deceptive genius has made him, for some of us, more super than any super- hero.

Since "Knives Out" was a piece of pop perfection, what can Johnson do for an encore? "Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery" is a thriller bold enough to have a Beatles song in its title, even though the title doesn't directly reference The Beatles (although the song does feature in the closing credits). Rather, he describes the spectacular onion-shaped glass chamber that sits atop a mansion, located on an island off the coast of Greece, that is owned by Miles Bron, a scandalously ambitious, famous, and dimwitted tech billionaire, played with entertainment the flippant smugness of Ed Norton (think Elon Musk and… well, that's about it). Miles has reunited five of his old pals for a three-day getaway. The impossibly luxurious severity of the mansion, away from the prying eyes of civilization, ups the ante on the old-fashioned house from the first film. Once the movie starts, much of it takes place in a living room filled with small glass sculptures, postmodern designer furniture, and garish, overpriced artwork. (It's like the most pretentious man cave in the world.)

In the opening sequence, each character is summoned by having the same hardwood box delivered to them at his home, which contains a series of puzzles they are expected to solve, with each puzzle unlocking the next. It's a metaphor for how the film works. Even more than the first "Knives Out", "Glass Onion" is a thriller wrapped in deception nestled in an enigma. This is, of course, a murder mystery with multiple suspects, but it comes with detours, flashbacks, bells and whistles, not to mention two police killings for the price of one.

The film is set shortly after the start of the pandemic, so the guests are all grateful to 'be there. (They are given a throat spray by Miles' assistant, played by Ethan Hawke, who for some reason is never seen again.) Each has achieved a remarkable position in the world by becoming something of a " disruptive". And they owe their success to Miles, who funded them all. But it gives everyone a motivation for murder.

Claire Debella (Kathryn Hahn), Governor of Connecticut, is a former soccer mom who tackles the political machine. Duke Cody (Dave Bautista) is a mad yahoo and influencer who became the first person to gain a million subscribers on Twitch (a fictional social media site). Birdie Jay (Kate Hudson) is a former model who turned her outrageous stardom — she was recently semi-cancelled due to a Beyoncé Halloween costume — to oversee a sweatpants empire. Lionel T...