What if the billionaire entrepreneur was not, in fact, a business genius and is instead a grade-A doofus who lucked out and glommed on to someone else’s good idea? This is the timely question asked by writer-director Rian Johnson’s exuberantly entertaining sequel to Knives Out.
Daniel Craig once again dons the natty little cravat as ace detective Benoit Blanc, but elsewhere there’s fresh blood, both in the cast and splattered all over the location – the private island of Miles Bron (Edward Norton). It’s a gloriously ridiculous edifice: a landscaped playground booby-trapped with passive-aggressive anti-smoking alarms and populated by Miles’s inner circle of “disruptors”. These include roided-out rightwing YouTuber Duke (Dave Bautista), rising political star Claire (Kathryn Hahn) and PR liability Birdie (Kate Hudson, having what appears to be the most fun an actor has ever had in a role). And then there’s a terrific, frosty Janelle Monáe, whose presence disconcerts the rest of the guests.
But the real star? Johnson’s crisply mischievous screenplay, which crams in so many laughs you almost don’t notice the occasional plot holes.
In cinemas on 23 November for one week; on Netflix from 23 December
