Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery
First screened in December 2025
Director: Rian Johnson. Cast: Josh O'Connor, Daniel Craig, Josh Brolin, Thomas Haden Church, Glenn Close, Mila Kunis, Daryl McCormack, Jeremy Renner, Andrew Scott, Cailee Spaeny, Kerry Washington, Jeffrey Wright, James Faulkner, Annie Hamilton, Noah Segan, Bridget Everett. Screenplay: Rian Johnson.
In Brief:
I value the duel between skepticism and belief but the primary one, often lost, is between purpose and flippancy.
VOR:
②
Some effort to be about something. Interesting signs of where Johnson might go with this franchise behind him. But: bloated, messy, over-cast.
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© 2025 Netflix |
Overlength. Tedium. Ugly-as-sin photography. Over-plotting. Mad music. Thin "social commentary." Persistent recourse to sitcommy sarcasm and gratuitous little burps of TikTok-y sass. Obvious culprit. No real reason for Benoit to even be in it. Uneven acting, ranging from "doing their best amidst hokey direction of questionable characters" to "never quite rising to even this iffy occasion" to "Mila Kunis." A talented writer-director who has mostly settled here, despite flashes of thematic ambition, for the scripting equivalent of yo-yo tricks.
Any one of these suspects might have murdered the movie. Many came close. But only one actually killed it off. Who was it?? Keep staring at this post for 144 minutes, and only then will all be reveeaaaaazzzzzzzzzzzz.... Grade: C–