Wake Up Dead Man | Film Review

 

A seemingly impossible murder inside a church causes Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) to become involved in a mystery that sees a close-knit community begin to turn on each other.

I was really excited about this one! I didn’t love the movie that came before this, Glass Onion, but I loved the first Knives Out and the concepts of both, and I’ll definitely watch as many movies as they make.

Unfortunately, and I think I’m completely alone in this, I was disappointed by the film.

But one thing I really loved was the cast – this may be the best cast yet! All of the actors were amazing and did such a good job with their respective characters.

I also liked the introductions to all the characters. This film goes back to the first of making the audience see all the characters from the point of view of an outsider, and that’s the best way to do these things.

This was also the first time that Blanc wasn’t the most interesting character.

It was funnier than I expected, and as with the other movies it’s really well written, for the most part.

But in saying that, I felt the story took a bit too long to really get started. Once we knew who the characters were I really wanted to get into the meat of the story and this took longer than I would have liked. And in addition to that, some of the scenes felt like they lasted longer than they needed to.

Throughout the film it feels like there have been lots of twists and turns, but when you sit back and think about it, not that much actually happens in the lead up to the ending reveal.

Blanc feels a lot less like the character this time around – less outlandish. This may be a spoiler but I hated that he didn’t get to reveal the truth this time around. Those are some of the best parts of the first two movies, and it sucks that he sat back and let the person reveal themselves in this one.

There are also things that he just knows without actually solving anything or working anything out. Some of his reveals just seem to come out of nowhere.

And this is the cardinal sin of the film – everything that happened in the film would have happened whether Blanc was there or not. Jud was essentially co-leading the investigation and probably would have figured out everything Blanc did, and then in the end the person confessed rather than Blanc drawing it out of them. Why was he there?

Considering how many amazing actors were included in the film, a lot of them felt underused and weren’t developed as well as they could have been – though that’s true of all Knives Out movies.

The story didn’t feel tied together as well as the first movie did. The reveal kind of made sense but it wasn’t exciting or particularly interesting.

Overall, I did like the film (despite how this review sounds), but it definitely wasn’t what I wanted it to be, and I’m completely happy for this to be a majorly unpopular opinion.

6/10