Critics Reckon ‘Knives Out’ Is The Most Entertaining Time You’ll Have At The Movies This Year

Over the last few years, gritty cinema has become the new normal.

Superhero movies are bleaker, sure, but so is everything else inbetween — from teen sitcoms like Riverdale to oddly depressing Christmas flicks like Last Christmas.

Knives Out, the new whodunit by Rian Johnson, aims to turn that tide. Sure, it’s a murder mystery propelled forward by horror, violence, and crime. But, according to critics, it’s also a rare contemporary movie that remembers how to actually have fun.

And everybody’s going bananas for it.

Knives Out Is A Riot

There’s one thing that all the reviews of Knives Out share — this film is a lot. Peter Travers of Rolling Stone, as part of his four star review, notes that the film crackles with electric wit.

“What a kick to watch whip-smart director Rian Johnson shake the cobwebs off the whodunit genre and make it snap to stylish, wickedly entertaining life for a new generation,” Travers writes.

I just saw knives out and can confidently say it was the best movie to come out in a long time sheesh

— Chance The Rapper (@chancetherapper) November 24, 2019

Nick De Semlyen of Empire takes the same tact, heaping praise onto Johnson’s inventive and fast-paced script. “Knives Out is a sly, wry and nimble homage to the murder mysteries of yesteryear, with a modern spin,” Semlyen writes. “And it’s exactly as fun as you’d hope.”

Even critics who were less broadly positive about the film have had to concede that this is a thriller made with a great deal of love. “The twists are kinked and amusing, although far less striking than the obvious pleasure Johnson had making this exactingly machined puzzle box,” writes Manohla Dargis of The New York Times.

It’s Very 2019

Although Knives Out is reverential to classics of the murder mystery genre — chief among them Clue and Deathtrap — the whole thing is soaked in a deeply contemporary vernacular.

That means, through US President Donald Trump is never named, his shadow hangs heavy over the entire proceedings, and the film directly touches on how modern technology has made us meaner and more disconnected.

“Among the roll-call of suspects is a Twitter troll, the kind of man-baby who probably gets upset about porgs,” writes Semlyen. “This is a world where iPhones exist, and the musical Hamilton, and, as one unexpected one-liner reveals, the Edgar Wright film Baby Driver.”

As many have pointed out, that political dimension is most clearly expressed in the handling of Marta (Ana De Armas), a maid, immigrant, and the film’s secondary lead.

“A deeper political dimension slowly takes shape as the family’s cavalier indifference to Marta plays a role in the movie’s unspooling mysteries,” writes Jake Coyle of the Associated Press. “Juggling themes of class privilege, immigration and ethnocentricity, Knives Out is a whodunit for the Trump era.”

Everybody’s Good, But Daniel Craig Steals The Show

Knives Out boasts a stacked cast of luminaries, with everyone from Jamie Lee Curtis to Miami Vice‘s Don Johnson popping up. But as good as all of those supporting players are, the actor to really get the plaudits is James Bond himself, Daniel Craig.

Sporting a bizarre Southern accent and chewing the scenery like so much fried food, Craig is the MVP according to many critics.

not only is #KnivesOut a wildly fun & gratifying mystery, it also has:

1) chris evans in a f-l-a-m-b-o-y-a-n-t scarf
2) a deep cut hamilton reference
3) daniel craig saying “donut hole” with such precise diction & feeling that it will haunt & amuse me for the rest of my days

— keely flaherty (@keelyflaherty) November 24, 2019

“Craig looks delighted to be liberated from the shackles of cool that come with playing James Bond, and his joy in letting himself go in the role… is contagious,” writes Travers.

Could all of this good press net Craig an Oscar nomination? It’s not impossible.

And that’s only more reason to get excited for this weirdo slice of baked ham.