What to watch: ‘Knives Out’ sequel matches its predecessor, ‘Disenchanted’ proves another great sequel, and more
Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery
Rated PG-13, 2 hours 19 minutes, in theaters Nov. 23
Rising to the challenge of matching its successful predecessor, “Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery” maintains the razor-sharp formula, with a setup that feels even more conspicuously like an Agatha Christie homage before an extremely clever series of twists kick in. Writer-director Rian Johnson again assembles a solid cast behind Daniel Craig, but it’s his use of language — where nary a word is wasted — that finally gives the sequel its edge.
Netflix opportunistically stepped up to acquire the “Knives Out” franchise and, departing from its usual “Stroke the filmmakers’ egos” approach to theatrical distribution, will actually give the movie a wide one-week-only release before it hits the streaming service in late December. Most people will probably still wait to consume it in the comfort of their homes, but for those who do take the plunge, it certainly plays well with an appreciative audience.
After the family dynamics in “Knives Out,” which gave everyone a motive to kill off the patriarch, Johnson tries his hand in a different setting, with an eccentric billionaire, Miles Bron (Edward Norton), inviting his old posse of pals to a murder-mystery getaway (during Covid, no less) on his secluded Greek isle, where they’ll be tasked with solving his “murder.”
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Jonathan Hession/Disney Enterprises, Inc
Amy Adams and Maya Rudolph in "Disenchanted," premiering on Disney+.
Disenchanted
Rated PG, 1 hour 58 minutes, Available on Disney+
“Disenchanted” asks the existential question, “What comes after ‘Happily Ever After?,'” which is, naturally, a sequel … only (because it’s 15 years later) for streaming. Amy Adams nimbly steps back into the role of an animated princess trying to adapt to the live-action world, in an epilogue to “Enchanted” that has moments of magic without completely delivering on the premise.
As recounted in storybook fashion, Adams’ Princess Giselle settled down with her unexpected prince, single dad Robert (Patrick Dempsey), and had a baby with him. Yet life in fantastical Andalasia left her ill prepared for the monotony and drudgery of married life, causing her to seek a means of shaking up her humdrum reality.
The HBO or Hulu version of that crisis would surely have a darker and harder edge, but this being Disney+, Giselle seizes upon the idea of moving the whole family to the suburbs, a seemingly idyllic place known as Monroeville, which looked good on the billboards. The decision, however, leaves Robert with a lousy commute and Giselle’s teenage stepdaughter, Morgan (Gabriella Baldacchino), feeling displaced and surly, forced as she is to leave “the kingdom of New York” behind.
The acrimony and tension at home doesn’t sit well with Giselle, who becomes desperate enough to try using a little magic that falls squarely into the “Be careful what you wish for” basket. In its most inspired flourish, the major backfire comes from the technicality of Giselle being a stepmother, a class of family member that hasn’t traditionally fared well in animated fairy tales.
The initial kick that enlivened “Enchanted” perhaps inevitable feels somewhat number in this context, what with all the singing to urban flora and fauna.
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Courtesy of Prime Video
Visual effects artists studied how Martian sand moves in the wind, how light diffuses through the thin Martian atmosphere, and what it looks like on the planet's surface at sunrise and sunset.
Good Night Oppy
Rated PG, 1 hour 45 minutes, Available on Amazon Prime Video
In the opening scenes of the new film “Good Night, Oppy,” the Opportunity rover rolls along through Perseverance Valley on Mars in June 2018, as “Roam” by The B-52s fills the room at mission control.
The peppy tune was the rover’s wake-up song, played at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. In the same way NASA has used a song to wake up astronauts each day they spend in space since the 1960s, the Opportunity rover team began their daily shifts with a song that set the mood for “Oppy’s” journey.
But a storm brewing on the horizon changed everything.
Oppy had weathered dust storms before, along with solar flares, sand traps, cosmic rays, near collisions and harsh Martian winters for more than a decade while exploring the red planet.
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