WAKE UP DEAD MAN (2025)

Third of the Rian Johnson KNIVES OUT murder mysteries; all with Daniel Craig as dapper Deep South free-lance detective Benoit Blanc, now with less accent.  It’s the darkest yet.  Not dark in tone or topic, but in lighting.  Interiors: murky church naves; clubby lamp-lit offices.  Exteriors: dense moody woods; twilight excursions.*  Elsewise, more or less the same Agatha Christie manqué, Johnson even showing us a typed list of literary inspirations for this ‘impossible crime’ knock off.  And if it goes on a little longer than it has to, it’s mostly good fun when a controversial priest gets knocked off mid-mass, and his acolytes are the suspects..  (Never-mind the Pop religious philosophizing.)  A game cast eagerly gnawing the scenery with displays of bravura acting include Josh O’Connor, new young priest under hard-nosed fanatic Father Josh Broslin.  With Glenn Close, spinster church manager; Thomas Haden Church, church property caretaker.  Plus church-going regulars Andrew Scott, Kerry Washington, Jeremy Renner; local Police Chief Mila Kunis, many more.  And you won’t drift off during the extended investigation (the murder is ‘solved’ multiple times), because Johnson appears to have had movie stars of his film going youth in mind for the major characters.  See if you can spot his substitutes for Gene Hackman, Cloris Leachman, Nick Nolte, George Segal², Diahann Carroll and (maybe?) Steve McQueen.  It’s more inetersting than solving the obfuscated, but oddly simple murder.

ATTENTION MUST BEPAID:  *The crepuscular cinematography would look infinitely better on the big screen.  With an arc-lamp projector running actual celluloid film stock.  But even in digital, only KNIVES OUT/’19 had a proper theatrical release, grossing well over 300 mill.  GLASS ONION, with but a token release nudged 20.  And WAKE UP?  Only a brief award qualifying vanity release that totaled one & a half million before it went online.  The NetFlix financial model obviously working for someone, just not the vanishing film going public.

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY:  GLASS ONION’s tag ending teased us with a peek at Hugh Grant as Craig’s significant other, suggesting an obvious sequel with the pair doing a Nick & Nora Charles routine on the next case.  What a missed opportunity!