Glass Onion * * * ½

A couple of years ago  Rian Johnson. gave us the highly entertaining Knives Out.  In Glass Onion, Inspector Benoit Blanc returns to weave his magic again - though this time (like a stage magician) he has recruited a pretty assistant.  Daniel Craig seems to be relishing the role and has developed Benoit Blanc further, exaggerating his eccentricities whilst also giving him a more deferential air. 

Benoit Blanc complete with head
 (often missing at the showing I went to.)

The setting for this murder mystery is an exotically located private island where an obscenely wealthy billionaire, well played (as always) by Ed Norton has invited a group of old friends to a party.  

He has also decided that they will play a game where he will be pretend to be murdered.  Being the wealthy fellow that he is, he has further indulged himself by inviting along the world famous detective Benoit Blanc to solve the pretend crime. Or did he invite him? (All part of the plot).

Then of course the real murder happens - and it's not the billionaire. Like the first Knives Out its good fun featuring some big name actors.  It's also got quite a few twists - which is exactly what you'd expect from a whodunnit. 

The billionaire's home might just be the most amazing you will ever see. It even has a painting which is globally considered as unobtainable. 

Towards the end, all the materialistic indulgence of the billionaire host meets destruction as mayhem rules.  Personally I found this quite inspiring and I would like to have joined in and applied the same rampant vandalism to the cinema.  Why, you might ask?

Because I am absolutely fed up with poor projection and Village would have to be one of the worst offenders. At this showing almost 30% of the film was spilling over the edge of the white screen into darkness so that slide titles at the bottom were unreadable whilst at the top heads were cut off. In one scene a character was talking and all that could be seen was his neck downwards.  Close ups were ridiculous.  What should be a close up of a face was the top of the eyebrows to just below the lower lip. Please don't insult me or by suggesting that is the way it was originally shot!  

How can a professional cinema group who charge considerable money for admission be so indifferent to this inexcusably low standard of projection?  I'd like to see Benoit solve that crime.