Number’s up

And then there were…

Jesus, look at the cast of this movie. You have master detective Bond, James Bond (Daniel Craig) investigating the death of Captain Von Trapp (Christopher Plummer). The suspects include (deep breathe) Captain America (Chris Evans), Joi (Ana de Armas), Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis), John Givings, Jr. (NSFW)(Michael Shannon), Sonny Crockett (Don Johnson), Lynn Sear (Toni Collette), Hannah Baker (Katherine Langford), Bill Denbrough (Jaeden Martell), Beatrice Bellacourt (Riki Lindhome), and Martha Kent (K Callan). F**k, that’s not even everybody.

Strap in for over two hours of people talking. Though luckily for the audience, it’s the type of talking that manages to be humorous, insightful, and captivating. Good thing too because this is one of those movies that requires you to pay attention to everything. And toss away your expectations because (spoiler) midway through the movie, it seems like Joi accidentally killed overdosed Von Trapp as his nurse. And not wanting the subsequent police scrutiny to reveal that Joi’s mother is undocumented, he helped her stage his death to look like a suicide. At which point, it seems like the rest of the movie will be whether or not she’ll get away with it. Then, in the end, we find out that there’s more to the story. (/spoiler)

 Similar to writer/director Rian Johnson’s previous film, Star Wars: The Last Jedi, there’s a lot of humor punctured throughout this movie. Besides the written dialogue, there’s also how a flashback will humorously juxtapose something that was said either before or after. Like how John says that his son Bill is politically active, which is followed by two other family members saying Bill’s a literal Nazi and alt-right troll.

 So, is the identity of the villain really obvious? Well, you can’t narrow it down to the person you recognize, because everybody’s recognizable. I kept eyeing Hannah because her character seemed way too nice, especially in a family that reprehensible. (spoiler) And while it eventually turns out that when push comes to shove, Hannah’s not as good a person as she seems, she’s not the bad guy. The bad guy ends up being Captain America in a twist that’s nicely set-up by all the foreshadowing, but not too obvious. Good writing, Johnson. (/spoiler)

What we have here is a great, modern mystery that’s well written, acted, and directed. Though Curtis and Shannon warn that it’s not a family movie unless you’re in the “double digits.” Some parents might look at the PG-13 rating and go “no duh.” Unless, of course, your parents decide that the rating system is a guideline and it’s what they think their child can handle that determines what they can watch. Then you can watch this and all kinds of other good movies that you probably shouldn’t be showing a child.