WAKE UP DEAD MAN (C) - I can't remember the last time I've seen such a dud of a cast, and one so lacking in direction in the face of a convoluted script that tries to be more clever than it is. The third entry in Rian Johnson's "Knives Out" series is an exasperating bomb.
Josh O'Connor lacks the heft to carry this ribald story of a parish priest who gets caught up in a small-town murder mystery, and he is surrounded by second-tier actors, most of whom serve as mere placeholders. Daniel Craig, the star of the trilogy as detective Benoit Blanc, has little to play off of and instead spouts Johnson's throw-away dialogue, the one-liners plummeting into a comedic void, eliciting barely a cricket. (It's probably for the best that this is being released mainly on Netflix and not to muted cinema crowds.) Josh Brolin, who seems to have generally just worn out his welcome, emotes to the heavens as a MAGA monsignor who covets a missing jewel that incites the mayhem. Brolin seems about as relevant these days as his dad is. ("I know you are, but what am I?")
Veterans Glenn Close and Thomas Haden Church are shadows of their former selves, and the rest have very little to do. That includes Mila Kunis yelling a lot as the local police chief; Jeffrey Wright as a sassy bishop; Andrew Scott ("Blue Moon") as a frustrated author; Kerry Washington as a generic lawyer; Cailee Spaeny as a disabled cellist, for some reason; a defanged Jeremy Renner as a doctor with the nerves of Don Knotts, and Daryl McCormack ("Good Luck to You, Leo Grande") as a hackneyed social-media influencer. Yeah, the star power doesn't exactly jump off the page; nor does it leap from the screen. (And we thought the second film in the series, "Glass Onion," had a B-list cast ...)
Johnson trots out hoary chestnuts like the spritely character who repeatedly startles the protagonist by seemingly coming out of nowhere. The biblical wordplay is unrelenting. A typical joke suggests that the blinding of Saul at Damascus might have been merely a "bad case of pink eye." It's the cartoonish kind of movie in which a single punch knocks a man out cold (even if he is a former boxer) -- and then have him wake up next to a dead body and mistakenly think he killed the person. (What high jinks!) Kunis and Craig even have the temerity to make a reference to "Scooby-Doo," which is a challenging bar for "Wake Up Dead Man."
The narrative plods along and tips its hand often. If you think a man of the cloth who dies on Good Friday isn't going to be "resurrected" a couple of days later, you won't be winning this year's kindergarten connect-the-dots championship. And Johnson takes his sweet time slathering on the plot points. Did I mention this is nearly two and a half hours long? You are stronger than I am if you can make it through this without pacing or wandering off for a bit to check your email.
There are clever notes here and there, but nothing rises to that spoofy Agatha Christie level of giddiness of the 2019 original, "Knives Out," with its enthusiastic performances from the likes of Jamie Lee Curtis, Michael Shannon, Toni Collette and Alec Baldwin (with an assist from newcomer Ana de Armas). What felt fresh six years ago seems fully played out. We now have solid evidence of diminishing returns, and while we admire Johnson's throwback energy, it turns out he just could not capture lightning in a bottle again.
BUGONIA (B) - Here is my theory of how "Bugonia" made it to the big screen: Will Tracy -- an Onion and John Oliver contributor who broke out in 2022 with "The Menu" -- and co-writer Jang Joon-hwan penned this taut dark comedy about conspiracy theorists that was about 95 minutes long. Then Greek director Yorgos Lanthimos came along and said, "Don't worry about the final half hour; I've got this" -- and ran the whole thing off the rails.
Lanthimos drew attention with his avant-garde early work, "Alps" and "Dogtooth," but has made one good movie ("The Favourite") in the past 15 years. We had hopes that this heavyweight bout between Emma Stone (playing a CEO who is kidnapped over her company's environmental crimes) and Jesse Plemons (playing a man who believes that Andromedans are plotting to kill off earthlings). And it does sizzle, thanks to a clever script and its two stars, until jumping the shark into silliness in the final reel.
You need an appreciation for horror and sci-fi (or the nostalgic production values of the original "Star Trek" TV show) and patience for logical leaps in order to make it to the end of the film. You'll have to believe that a character with a broken kneecap can hobble away beyond the pursuit of security guards and law enforcement. You must withstand whipsaw changes in main characters' motives and actions.
However, for at least the first hour, this is an endlessly clever exercise that allows Stone and Plemens, two of the best actors of their day, to play to their strengths -- she as Michelle, a type-A CEO, and he as Teddy, the aggrieved conspiracy merchant who drags his mentally handicapped cousin into his felonious scheme, apparently out of a basic love for honeybees and their survival (and inspired by his mother's cancer that he attributes to Michelle's company). His is a familiar type -- smart enough to know how to look for information; dumb (or mentally ill) enough to fall victim to confirmation bias. Meantime, newcomer Aidan Delbis, as the cousin, brings nothing fresh to the familiar trope of the dimwitted patsy.)
It is fun to watch Michelle ply her business-school training and HR jargon when trying to talk her way out of her chained existence in the basement of the beat-up rural home. (It looks like the kind of house that a grown man would inherit -- decor, dust and all -- after his parents die.) It's a kick to watch her kick off her heels as she prepares to fight off the cousins during the initial kidnap attempt, using her self-defense training. As the trailer reveals, Plemons is a ticking time bomb who is not averse to ape-sprinting across a dining room table to furiously attack his captive in the middle of dinner.
Your mission is to decide whether two-thirds of a very good movie are worth the eye-rolls it takes to make it to the final credits. I managed it.
BONUS TRACK
"Bugonia's" climax makes compelling use of Marlene Dietrich's interpretation of Pete Seeger's "Where Have All the Flowers Gone," even if it feels unearned at the end:
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