Movie Review

Comedy and intrigue pair perfectly in Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery

The murder mystery genre is one that never really goes out of style, but only if it keeps up with the times. One of many issues with Kenneth Branagh recently reviving Agatha Christie’s works is that he hasn’t updated the stories at all, leaving them feeling very old-fashioned. Writer/director Rian Johnson brought the genre into the 21^st century with 2019’s Knives Out, something he continues with aplomb in the pseudo-sequel, Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery.

Detective Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) is, like everyone else in mid-2020, struggling with the isolation of the pandemic. He gets a lifeline when he receives an invitation from billionaire Miles Bron (Edward Norton) to join him and five of Bron’s closest friends – Birdie Jay (Kate Hudson), Duke Cody (Dave Bautista), Andi Brand (Janelle Monáe), Claire Debella (Kathryn Hahn), and Lionel Toussaint (Leslie Odom Jr.) – at his private island in Greece for a murder mystery-themed birthday party.

What happens on the island is best left experienced by the viewer, but suffice it to say that it involves over-the-top opulence, intrigue, jealousy, double-crosses, murder, and, naturally, Blanc lending his unique perspective to everything that takes place.

If the first Knives Out was a whodunit with lots of entertaining elements, Glass Onion could be considered a comedy that just so happens to have mystery at its center. Johnson has loaded the film with characters and situations that are ridiculous, but not so exaggerated as to be off-putting. Absurdity rules the day, but in a way that complements the story instead of being jokes-for-jokes’-sake.

The group of friends, representing a wide variety of professions, at first seems to be an odd combination, but as their history is gradually revealed, the tighter they become. The ingrained dynamics that were at play with the family in Knives Out are somewhat missing here, but Johnson and the actors imbue the characters with just enough detail so that the hold they have on each other feels real instead of contrived.

One of the unexpected pleasures the film offers is the number of off-the-wall celebrity cameos it contains. Setting the story early in the pandemic is not a crucial part of the film, but doing so allows Johnson to include a Zoom call with perhaps the least-expected celebrity quartet imaginable. Joseph Gordon-Levitt, who’s been in every movie Johnson has made, makes perhaps his funniest, if most invisible, appearance.

Craig, who’s been begging to get away from James Bond for years, is once again a delight. As he’s shown as Blanc and in 2017’s Logan Lucky, if you pair him with a Southern accent and the freedom comedy provides, the result is magic. The rest of the cast does well, with Norton and Monáe especially standing out.

Glass Onion is so good that you can easily see Johnson returning every few years with a fresh cast; in fact, a third film is already planned for 2024. Other than Blanc, Johnson is not relying on the same tricks this time around, indicating his creativity knows no bounds.

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Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery will be in select theaters for one week starting November 23. It will debut on Netflix on December 23.

Photo courtesy of Netflix

Daniel Craig in Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery.

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Good as gold

Dallas gymnast Skye Blakely wins gold at 2026 world championships

Day 7 - Artistic Gymnastics World Championships Rotterdam 2026

Photo by Adam Pretty/Getty Images

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ROTTERDAM, Netherlands (AP) — American Skye Blakely soared to the women's all-around gold at the world gymnastics championships on Friday, putting together four stellar routines as other top competitors faltered.

The 21-year-old's total of 55.733 included a dazzling set on uneven bars and a stoic and steady performance on balance beam and no major form breaks or falls, giving the Dallas native a moment of redemption after bids to make the 2020 and 2024 U.S. Olympic teams ended due to injury.

Blakely was born in Dallas and lives and trains in Frisco, at the World Olympic Gymnastics Academy (WOGA); she's also a student-athlete at the University of Florida.

Blakely broke into tears when she walked off the podium at the end of her floor exercise in the final rotation, her long and painful journey with an unforgiving sport hitting a high note that seemed far away during lengthy rehabs that taxed both her mind and her body.

Liudmila Roschina earned silver at 55.199. Ke Qinqin of China took bronze at 55.032.

Algerian Kaylia Nemour's bid to become the first gymnast from Africa to win an all-around title at worlds ended with a fourth-place finish. The 19-year-old's finals got off to a rough start in her first rotation when her feet didn't land squarely on the springboard while vaulting, forcing her to do a simpler vault that cost her valuable points.

While Nemour recovered spectacularly thanks in large part to an uneven bars routine that is one of the hardest routines done on any apparatus by any gymnast — male or female — in the world, it wasn't quite enough to reach the podium.

American Claire Pease's hopes of joining Blakely on the medal stand ended when she hopped off beam on her way to a seventh-place finish. Pease, a Sunnyvale native, also trains at WOGA in Frisco.

Blakely and Pease were competing two days after the U.S. saw its long run of gold medals in the team finals at worlds end with a second-place finish to resurgent China. That up-and-down night included Blakely failing to get credit for a connection during her beam routine that cost the Americans nearly a point in a meet where they missed out on gold by a fraction of that.

There were no such issues this time around. Blakely headed to beam atop the leaderboard after an excellent start on vault followed by a bars routine that's pretty good in its own right.

Still, beam is something different. And this time there were no missed connections and barely a wobble. Her score of 14.200 kept her in front and turned her floor exercise largely into a victory lap.

The tears after she saluted the judges were real. So were the ones when her spot atop the sport became official about 15 minutes later.

Blakely then draped the American flag over her back while posing for the cameras becoming the ninth U.S. woman — and sixth this century — to win a world all-around crown.

While the picture figures to get considerably more crowded in the next two years ahead of the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles, Blakely's perseverance and talent have thrust her back into the conversation.

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