Knives Out (2019) Review

 Hey everyone! How was your Christmas? Mine was excellent! I'm still trying to figure out my haul post, which I'm probably going to split into several posts because I got alot since November and that will save you from any long posts. So look for that starting tomorrow. Right now though I'm here to talk about the 2019 Whodunit film, Knives Out, written and directed by Rian Johnson. So, let's get into it.

I've been wanting to see Knives Out since it came out two years ago. Unfortunately I didn't have the chance to go see it in theatres. 2019 was a big year for movies with Captain Marvel, Avengers: Endgame, Glass, The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part, Happy Death Day 2U, Alita: Battle Angel, How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World, Dumbo, Aladdin, The Lion King, Shazam!, Hellboy, Detective Pikachu, John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum, Brightburn, Godzilla: King of the Monsters, Booksmart, Dark Phoenix, The Secret Life of Pets 2, Men in Black: International, Toy Story 4, Child's Play, Annabelle Comes Home, Spider-Man: Far From Home, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Hobbs & Shaw, It: Chapter Two, Ad Astra, Rambo: Last Blood, Joker, The Addams Family, Maleficent: Mistress of Evil, Zombieland: Double Tap, Jojo Rabbit, Terminator: Dark Fate, Ford v Ferrari, Frozen II, A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, Jumanji: The Next Level, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, and Little Women all coming out that year.

Of all of those movies that I mentioned, I saw seven of them in theatres, and I was interested in 13 of them. 14 if you include Knives Out. Unfortunately time didn't allow me to go see all fourteen movies that I wanted to see in 2019 in theatres. And many of them I still haven't seen. It's not like I can go to the video store and rent a few movies for the weekend. Nor can I afford half a dozen streaming services just so I can watch all of the movies that I wanted to see in a particular year. But thanks to it being cheap on iTunes, I was finally able to see Knives Out and I loved it.

I'm not a big fan of Whodunits because after awhile they become repetitive and oftentimes I find myself solving the mystery before the protagonist does. Not because I'm a genius or anything, but those are the times where the script is written to be obvious and easy for the audience to solve. Knives Out is not that kind of murder mystery film, even though it emulates many aspects of films like Clue (1985).

About halfway through the movie it seems like the mystery has been solved, not by Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig), but shown to us, the audience. But, then we discover during the second half of the movie that all is not as it seems and certain characters are more heavily involved than you thought initially. That was a big twist, which I won't reveal in this review, because it's worth watching this movie for the ending.

The cast of this movie is spectacular! While the movie's poster and even the trailer makes it seem like it's an ensemble cast, it's not. The movie is very much focused on Ana de Armas's character, Marta and she's the character we follow through the entire film. Her co-lead is Daniel Craig's character, Benoit Blanc, a renowned private investigator, who was hired to solve the case by an unknown client, who we discover at the end of the movie. That doesn't mean that the rest of the cast has nothing to do. But they aren't the focus so we don't spend very much time with the rest of Harlan's family outside of Chris Evans's character, Ransom Drysdale. 

This movie was my first time seeing Ana de Armas in anything and I was impressed. She's an extremely good actress and I am actually excited to see her in future projects, maybe as a voice in a Disney movie, or a future Star Wars film or MCU project. Or even a romantic comedy even. I think she's versatile enough as a performer to be good in any movie she's in. Which is actually pretty rare. Like there are performers who are great in comedies, but don't work quite as well in dramas. Or are fantastic in horror, but don't work well in Science Fiction. That sort of thing. 

I'm not a big fan of Daniel Craig's run as James Bond, having not seen his Bond films since Quantum of Solace (2008). I also haven't seen him in very many movies that weren't Bond films, since Lara Croft: Tomb Raider in 2001. But I was blown away at how good he was in Knives Out.

The rest of the cast is a who's who of acting across multiple generations. Christopher Plummer, who I mostly know as General Chang in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, is a Canadian legend and Jamie Lee Curtis, who I know mostly from Freaky Friday (2003) and Veronica Mars (2014), is also a legend at this point. Chris Evans (MCU, Not Another Teen Movie, Scott Pilgrim vs. The World), Don Johnson (Nash Bridges), Michael Shannon (Man of Steel), Toni Collette (The Sixth Sense), Katherine Langford (Love, Simon, 13 Reasons Why), Jaeden Martell (It, It Chapter Two), Lakeith Stanfield (Get Out), Riki Lindhome (The Big Bang Theory, Gilmore Girls), and K Callan (Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman) round out the main supporting cast. Frank Oz makes a cameo appearance as Harlan Thrombey's attorney. That's a pretty powerful cast, even if I haven't seen Toni Collette and Lakeith Stanfield in anything before this movie. I'm familiar with everyone else in this supporting cast.

I say supporting cast because Ana de Armas and Daniel Craig are the lead actors in this movie. It's focused on them. Everyone else is just there to fill the roles they play. I don't mind ensemble casts, but they don't always work when the cast is large enough. You can't give that large a cast equal screentime or even storylines in movies like this. That was one of the problems that I had with Star Wars: The Last Jedi, which was also written and directed by Rian Johnson. The cast was too big and you couldn't focus on the new characters, like Rose Tico, properly without sacrificing time with the characters established in The Force Awakens or the returning characters, like Luke and Leia, from the Original Trilogy. So I'm glad that for Knives Out Johnson chose to focus on two characters and have the rest of the cast there for story purposes. It made things easier for me to follow while I watched it. 

I kinda like that people are starting to appreciate murder mysteries again. I mean, sure they've never really gone away, but like I was telling my friend, Aaron, earlier today, the classic Whodunnit shows were replaced by police procedurals and dramas such as Castle. Until Knives Out came out two years ago, murder mysteries like it just weren't getting made anymore. But I hope the sequel, because yes it's getting a sequel, generates even more interest in the genre, because I would love to see what other writers and directors can do with it.

Knives Out is an awesome movie! If you haven't seen it yet, I definitely recommend you watch it. I wish I hadn't had to wait so long to see it because it's one of the best movies that came out in 2019 and as I said at the beginning of this review, alot of really good movies came out in 2019. I'll definitely be watching it again in the future. 

That's going to be all for me for today, but I will be back tomorrow with the first part of my big haul post, starting with everything I got when I was out with Brad on November 14th. So until then have a great evening and I will talk to you all later. Take care.