so embarrassed to admit this as a knives out hater but once you get past the awful first 20-30 minutes this is not only fun and surprising but actually fairly clever. i don’t think rian johnson is some great social satirist by any means and there is a smugness to these films that i really detest, but he refines the insincere, arch self-satisfaction in the politics of knives out to a grander, better, and less insular target than “annoying rich american family full of faux liberals and MAGA freaks. rich people are bad, did you know??” fans of that film love to remind you that those scenes are a very brief portion of the film but IMO that of-the-moment ideology infects the whole thing. i think glass onion benefits from the target and overall ideology being so ridiculous and easy to lampoon; not just of the moment, but a timeless common enemy to all. and i think he weaves the murder mystery together with his commentary pretty nicely to create an entertaining and satisfying end product.

he is not good at tapping into popular culture at all though (real “how do you do fellow kids?”) and should stop doing that. my parents don’t know what “among us” is! you’re scaring them!!!