Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery has received positive early reviews, with critics singling out cast members Josh O’Connor and Daniel Craig for particular praise.
The murder mystery is the third in Rian Johnson’s series of films starring Craig as Southern detective Benoit Blanc. The first film was the box office hit Knives Out, which was followed in 2022 by sequel Glass Onion, which debuted on Netflix after the streamer bought the rights to the franchise.
Wake Up Dead Man sees Blanc travel to upstate New York in order to solve a mystery surrounding the murder of a priest. Josh O’Connor co-stars as a young man of the cloth implicated in the murder, with fellow suspects played by Glenn Close, Andrew Scott, Mila Kunis, and Jeremy Renner.
The film had its world premiere at Toronto Film Festival on September 6, ahead of a November 28 UK cinema release, coming to Netflix on December 12. Early reviews have called it the best film yet in the series, pointing to O’Connor and Craig as the strongest links in the story.
Rolling Stone’s David Fear called the film an improvement on the previous instalment, which he felt “occasionally fell victim to a little too much nudge-wink direct messaging about the rich and infamous”. He also piled praise on Craig’s lead. “The evident fun that the actor is having onscreen is infectious” he wrote. “The anything-goes aspect of his collaboration with Johnson fits the actor’s strengths like the sleuth’s well-tailored suits. Craig is still playing within the genre’s parameters, yet the colour he brings to Blanc remains a key part of why these movies work as well as they do.”
The Guardian’s Benjamin Lee also felt it “fixed” some of the issues with Glass Onion, which he described as “relying on humour designed to appeal to a terminally online audience.” “Gone is the excess, the cameos, the smugness, everything that felt like a distraction” he wrote. “Instead, all of that effort has been redirected to the basics of storytelling.” He concluded that the film is the sign of “a series that’s really found its footing again, a wealth of fun to be had in ways that are constantly surprising, a franchise fully woken up.”
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The BBC’s Caryn Jones claimed that “The biggest revelation of Wake Up Dead Man … is that Josh O’Connor, so great at drama, is also an excellent comic.” The writer would go on to add: “Craig is a scene-stealer himself. Blanc turns up to solve a murder in Chimney Rock with his southern accent and confident swagger, looking more dapper than ever. But it seems that with each Knives Out film he has fewer scenes, and at times he is like an orchestra conductor weaving us through the various characters and possibilities in the ever-twisting plot.”
Johnny Oleksinski of The New York Post described the movie as “the darkest, scariest and undoubtedly finest acted [film] of the entire detective series.” Also praising the “always fantastic” O’Connor, he concluded: “Wake Up Dead Man builds to a solid and satisfying ending. You still couldn’t solve it on your own, but delightful clues abound. So do rapidfire gags, many of which come from dandy, deranged Daniel Craig as Blanc. A fleeting, hilarious reference to the musical Cats makes your abs hurt.”
Wake Up Dead Man was also recently announced as the opening film of this year’s London Film Festival. Elsewhere, Rian Johnson opened up about the plans for his scrapped Star Wars trilogy.
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