Rian Johnson (Brick, Looper) was–somewhat deservedly–the subject of much opprobrium for The Last Jedi from many in the fan community and Knives Out is the followup.

And…it’s a good movie, though not without problems; the greatest being that Johnson thinks he’s much more clever than he really is. There are two instances in particular–one of which the entire movie revolves around– when Johnson writes (he wrote as well as directed the movie) himself into a corner, and “cheats” his way out (I define cheating as when a character(s) in a movie says or does things later that aren’t supported by their actions prior, which oddly enough was the problem with The Last Jedi, except on a much larger scale).

Though this is Daniel Craig’s movie, who pays Benoit Blanc–essentially Hercule Poirot–as a pretentious Southern dandy, full of pithy, pretentious quotes that amount–at least initially–to very little though Christopher Plummer, despite having relatively little screen time, steals every scene he happens to be in.

The movie is also a bit long, and being comprised entirely of characters talking to each other, feels even longer.

But as I said earlier, it’s pretty good and a lot of fun, which perhaps one of the most awesome car chases in movie history (it really is, though not quite for the reasons you might think).