2025 - WAKE UP DEAD MAN: A KNIVES OUT MYSTERY, probably the last in the series or maybe not.

A little behind the scenes recap.   Rian Johnson the director/writer released the first film in the series Knives Out in 2019 to theaters.  Johnson committed to two more sequels which went out for bid for the release of the sequels.  The winner of this little bidding war Netflix payed an obscene amount of money to Johnson and his producer along with star Daniel Craig.  After these two sequels I can assure you none of these guys will ever have to work again which includes their wives, children, grandchildren and probably great grandchildren.  Frankly if some company waved millions of dollars at me it would be hard to say no.

For all of the financial wheeling and dealing that went on to get this movie made Wake Up Dead Man turned out fairly well.  Rian Johnson wasn't asleep at the wheel for this film, he wrote a clever script which had some not uninteresting things to say about religion and the existence of god, a plot point you don't usually see in a murder mystery.

 

As usual Johnson went for the off beat casting, Glenn Close, Josh Brolin, Mila Kunis, Jeremy Renner and Kerry Washington to name a few all show up in rather offbeat roles.  Daniel Craig is back with his shaky southern accent, as crime solving detective Benoit Blanc.  He's almost a supporting character in this film.  The focus in on a priest accused of murder played by Josh O'Connor who had previously played Prince Charles in the unending Netflix series The Crown.

 

Since this is a murder mystery there will not be spoilers here, this is an enjoyable film with some amusing dialog and so very clever scenes

The running time is a bit long at 144 minutes.  

2012 - LOOPER, very entertaining time travel thriller.

 The writer/director Rian Johnson is a very clever fellow.  Lately he's been concentrating on mysteries involving his character Benoit Blanc a apparently gay upscale private detective.  Looper was Johnson's third film and it was a combination of a science fiction time travel story and a thriller. 

The plot involves a criminal organization with a time machine who use it to send people they want killed back in time.  After the victim arrives in the past a hit man is waiting to kill him which will in effect erase him from existing in the future.  One of the hit men  played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt awaits his next victim who when he arrives back in time turns out to be his older self played by Bruce Willis.  Willis manages to escape being killed by his younger self and as they say let the fun of this elaborate plot begin.

 

Joseph Gordon Lewis is very good as the younger assassin trying to sort out this time travel paradox mess.  Bruce Willis is Bruce Willis as usual apparently his motivation in this film was hie ten million dollar paycheck.  There is a subplot involving Emily Blunt playing a mother with a son who has powerful if undeveloped  telekinetic powers that eventually figures into the plot as well.

 

Rian Johnson's inspiration for this story probably was Brian DePalms's Carrie, the very clever Spanish thriller Timecrimes and Shane Carruth's Primer one of the most complicated time travel films I have ever seen.  If I have a criticism of this film it's mostly because it turns into another tiresome Bruce Willis Die Hard type shoot-em up.  Was this in the screenplay?  Did Bruce Willis insist on a large scale action scene as was usually the case with his films?  Anyway annoying as the Bruce Willis bloodbath is it is it doesn't ruin the film.

The film was a financial success and led to Rian Johnson's next film, Star Wars: The Last Jedi, the only one of the recent trilogy that was any good.  Looper is a very good commercial entertainment that doesn't insult the audience's intelligence for a change.

The running time for Looper is 118 minutes.