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Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery seems to be splitting critics: there are those who think it’s the best of the bunch, and those, including me, who found this latest movie to be a notable step down in pure entertainment value.
This third Knives Out film, which pulls Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) into another murder mystery involving a cast of colorful characters, appeals to a certain type of critic and fan who appreciate the glaring subtext that targets Christians who embrace hate and the twisted power and abuse of religion and religious institutions. As an atheist, such themes should resonate with me, and writer/director Rian Johnson notably casts Benoit as a proud atheist who isn’t shy about sharing his views with the movie’s main character, a cursing, passionate priest played by Josh O’Connor.
But I care more about entertainment value, and Wake Up Dead Man, while still intriguing and fast-paced and amusing, simply lacks the energy and breezy lightheartedness of the last two (I liked but didn’t love the first Knives Out, but Glass Onion made my Top Ten Movies of 2022 list). Johnson of course is allowed to mix things up and take his franchise in different directions with different types of stories, and there isn’t anything inherently wrong with Wake Up Dead Man: it’s a solid murder mystery with some great performances (O’Connor in particular is excellent).
But everything feels more downtrodden this go around. A big contributor is that Johnson doesn’t take advantage of his killer cast the way he has previously. O’Connor is excellent and Glenn Close is gleefully good, but most of the rest of the cast (Mila Kunis, Jeremy Renner, Kerry Washington, Andrew Scott, Cailee Spaeny, and Daryl McCormack) are wasted. I was excited to see Washington on screen early on—she’s an actress who I have always felt deserved to be a bigger name than she is—but two days later I can’t think of a single thing her character does in the movie. Everyone else, as far as Knives Out characters go, are shockingly forgettable.
Craig of course is fine, though even he feels a little lost in his own movie, while some of the other top actors (Josh Brolin, Thomas Hayden Church, and Jeffrey Wright) are simply underutilized.
Make no mistake: Wake Up Dead Man is a well made movie that deserves to be seen if you like murder mysteries, but just because the movie is a glaring takedown of the falsely righteous doesn’t make it the best of the Knives Out movie. In fact, this one cuts shallowest of all.
Review by Erik Samdahl. Erik is a marketing and technology executive by day, avid movie lover by night. He is a member of the Seattle Film Critics Society.