Every now and then, a film arrives that reminds you why you enjoy going to the cinema in the first place.
Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery is exactly that sort of treat — a lively, clever, wonderfully oddball ride that feels like a filmmaker rediscovering his groove.
The original Knives Out in 2019 had critics purring; the 2022 sequel, Glass Onion, not so much.
But Rian Johnson pulls himself right back into the magic circle with this latest instalment, which somehow manages to outshine even the debut.
Where Wit Meets a Touch of Shadow
When I first caught the film during the London Film Festival last month, the audience buzzed with laughter, gasps, and the quiet approval that comes from watching a cast relish every second.
I went back for a second viewing with my wife — at the Everyman in Stratford-upon-Avon, no less — and the film was just as electric.
The town’s most famous playwright would, I suspect, have admired the way Johnson balances deep, knotty themes with mischief and sparkle.
Shakespeare, after all, knew how to make weighty ideas dance.
Enter Benoit Blanc… Eventually
Curiously, the film lets nearly three-quarters of an hour pass before Benoit Blanc wanders into view.
Daniel Craig plays him with that honey-thick, Southern accent that always sounds like it could be poured over ice.
And yet, this time, even Craig’s charisma is rivalled — perhaps even outdone — by Josh O’Connor, who turns in a remarkable performance as Jud Duplenticy, a young priest with more bruises on his conscience than in his boxing days.
A Church Full of Secrets
Jud’s arrival in Chimney Rock, a quiet town in upstate New York, sets the plot ticking. After falling out with the seminary, he’s dispatched to a parish run by Monsignor Jefferson Wicks — a fire-and-brimstone force of nature played with gleeful menace by Josh Brolin.
Wicks rules the church with such theatrical ferocity that newcomers routinely bolt mid-sermon.
And Jud? The congregation eyes him like he’s arrived with a ticking package.
Among the wary locals: a doctor nursing old wounds (Jeremy Renner), a sci-fi novelist with a thousand-yard stare (Andrew Scott), and an oily political climber (Daryl McCormack).
None, however, are as unsettling as Martha Delacroix — Glenn Close in spine-prickling form — appearing silently in corners like a ghost who just happens to know everyone’s sins.
A Fortune Lost, A Priest Dead, A Detective on the Trail
Beneath the church’s pious surface lies a decades-old mystery involving a vanished family fortune, once belonging to an earlier priest and rumoured to have been hidden away before his daughter — labelled “the harlot whore” by the kindly locals — could inherit it.
Blanc teams up with Jud to chase that thread, but his real purpose in town becomes violently clear when Wicks is murdered during Holy Week.
And, in true Agatha Christie fashion, practically everyone has a reason to want him gone.
A Joyfully Twisty Puzzle
Johnson clearly had enormous fun laying the breadcrumbs: a few deliberate misdirections here, a bold flashback there, and a couple of playful Hitchcock nods sprinkled in for good measure.
It’s the kind of film where the audience feels like they’re in on the joke — and where the cast seem thrilled to be delivering it.
Watching it all from those soft cinema sofas, the whole thing felt like a near-perfect marriage of script, performance, and theatrical flair.
If there’s anything to nit-pick, perhaps the 12A rating is optimistic; one particularly stomach-turning moment involving acid suggests otherwise.
But viewers above that age will have an absolute blast.
Also Showing This Week…
Blue Moon — A Beautifully Fragmented Portrait
Lorenz Hart, the brilliant yet tormented lyricist behind classics such as My Funny Valentine and The Lady Is a Tramp, takes centre stage in Blue Moon.
Richard Linklater frames Hart’s life through the events of a single night in March 1943 — the evening Oklahoma! opened without him.
Ethan Hawke, made to appear strikingly short through clever camera trickery, slips into Hart’s brittle, wounded charm with finesse.
The film lingers less on spectacle and more on conversation — sharp, theatrical exchanges that occasionally lean toward showing off, but never at the expense of intelligence.
Andrew Scott, Margaret Qualley, and Bobby Cannavale round out the ensemble in a story that’s really about an artist who burned too bright and too painfully.
Christy — A Solid Lead in a Film That Pulls Its Punches
Christy takes on the real-life rise and torment of trailblazing boxer Christy Martin, portrayed with both grit and vulnerability by Sydney Sweeney.
Her abusive husband and trainer, played by Ben Foster, gives the film its darkest edges.
But despite the power in Sweeney’s performance, the movie struggles under clichéd storytelling and boxing scenes that don’t quite convince.
It aims for knockout drama, but the punches don’t always land.
Zootropolis 2 — A Dynamic Duo Level Up
The ever-charming Judy Hopps and Nick Wilde return in Zootropolis 2, proving once again that some animated pairings earn their place among great cinematic duos.
Ginnifer Goodwin and Jason Bateman voice them with warmth and quick wit as their partnership evolves from friendly bickering into something more mature — a proper, grown-up working relationship.
The plot tilts toward noir this time, with echoes of Chinatown and even a cheeky homage to The Shining.
There’s so much here for adults that you occasionally forget it’s a kids’ movie — until the colours, humour, and boundless energy pull you back in.
My five-year-old proclaimed it his new favourite, which feels like the best review a family film can get.
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