Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery – Bad Writing

filmcolossus.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 157 posts

Re: Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery – Bad Writing

#21

Post by fxtentacle »

vander_elst wrote: post #18

[spoiler warning] Just watched the movie yesterday evening and I was also quite disappointed, some of the choices did seem cheap, the twin, the book stopping the bullet, the "punishment" of Miles by the destruction of the Mona Lisa. I think that the movie had some potential, but after the twin reveal everything started going south. Edit: added warning

Maybe you should add a spoiler warning.

BTW I thought the punishment was very good writing. As long as he's rich, all will lie to protect him. Once the source of his money - which is he reputation of Klear - is destroyed, all of them stop lieing to cover for him. I thought it highlighted their hypocrisy exceptionally well.

Re: Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery – Bad Writing

#22

Post by kevingadd »

automatoney wrote: post #20
rendall wrote: post #14

> Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery might be one of the worst written movies I’ve ever seen. Then this person has not seen very many movies. > And now Glass Onion will haunt me for the rest of my days. I don't care too much for this superlative, unduly passionate style of pop culture critique even if it is a joke. I enjoy reading negative critique of movies I like, as long as it shows understanding that reasonable pe…

The author also "absolutely loathed Star Wars: The Last Jedi" which to me feels like an overreaction to a movie.

Sounds like the director's style just doesn't work for them at all.

Re: Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery – Bad Writing

#23

Post by mypastself »

cramjabsyn wrote: post #19
mypastself wrote: post #15

I’m geniunely wondering what the audience is supposed to get from all the 2020 references (Covid, Among Us, Zoom, Twitch), and the barrage of celebrity name-drops. I feel like the film was written for some specific Twitter subculture Rian Johnson is a part of, and maybe they find all the references hilarious. The mystery is dull, the dialogue obnoxious, the jokes unfunny, and the camera has that patented ugly digital…

Is it shocking? Sequels are notorious for being this way. It’s rare that a sequel can capture lightning in a bottle in the same way as the original.

I don’t know if you’ve seen the movie, but it’s almost a completely different style and tone. Sequels tend to play it safe and try to redo the original, but Johnson instead tried to make a completely different film.

I’m wondering if Netflix gave him much greater creative freedom, and if the original movie would have been much worse without studio notes.

Re: Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery – Bad Writing

#24

Post by swivelmaster »

brookst wrote: post #16
ageitgey wrote: post #10

Glass Onion takes the well-worn detective genre and creates some genuinely surprising moments by "cheating" a little with what it shows the audience. This article says it should have played it straight. I think that would have made for a more standard, boring movie. But whatever, that's just opinion. But I think it is silly to call it bad writing. Bad implies that the writer didn't have command of their craft. It is…

Well said. The author is basically complaining that their steak dinner was the worst pizza they’ve ever had.

Incredible analogy! I love it!

Re: Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery – Bad Writing

#25

Post by vletal »

I'd not mind the structure and flashbacks if

- the first act was not so slow and boring, failing to actually introduce the characters - the finale was not so dumb...

At first I felt a little bored. At the end I was disappointed. Only the middle of the movie was kinda fun.

Re: Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery – Bad Writing

#26

Post by lukas099 »

vander_elst wrote: post #18

[spoiler warning] Just watched the movie yesterday evening and I was also quite disappointed, some of the choices did seem cheap, the twin, the book stopping the bullet, the "punishment" of Miles by the destruction of the Mona Lisa. I think that the movie had some potential, but after the twin reveal everything started going south. Edit: added warning

When the twin destroyed that painting, she became the villain of the movie.

Re: Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery – Bad Writing

#27

Post by DoneWithAllThat »

We are seriously in the dark ages of writing right now. It’s not that good books, movies and tv shows aren’t being made, but most of the top tier a list stuff is just astoundingly awful and amateurish. It’s like these industries are trying to make hot garbage now and only occasionally goof up and accidentally end up with a good story.

Re: Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery – Bad Writing

#28

Post by brookst »

marcellus23 wrote: post #8
rimher wrote: post #3

I found it rather enjoyable, but a click bait title will definitely get you further in this age of the internet

What’s clickbait about it? If anything it’s anti-clickbait — it just says Knives Out has bad writing, and then the article goes on to explain why.

It’s clickbait because it asserts something surprising and extreme about a movie that is generally considered to be very good, and then the article can’t really back the title up, let alone its even more extreme yet wishy-washy claim that the movie “might be” one of the worst movies the author has ever seen (talk about bad writing — that should be either “is one of the worst” or “might be the worst”).

The article maaaybe identifies one or two minor flaws, but mostly demonstrates that the author didn’t understand the movie. The word “fugue” is not mentioned in the review, for one of the many big misses.

It reads to me like garden variety clickbait of the “Beatles didn’t have a single good song” or “the internet has done no good” variety.

Re: Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery – Bad Writing

#29

Post by snickerbockers »

automatoney wrote: post #20
rendall wrote: post #14

> Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery might be one of the worst written movies I’ve ever seen. Then this person has not seen very many movies. > And now Glass Onion will haunt me for the rest of my days. I don't care too much for this superlative, unduly passionate style of pop culture critique even if it is a joke. I enjoy reading negative critique of movies I like, as long as it shows understanding that reasonable pe…

The author also "absolutely loathed Star Wars: The Last Jedi" which to me feels like an overreaction to a movie.

it's not an overreaction to that movie.

Re: Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery – Bad Writing

#30

Post by musingsole »

jccalhoun wrote: post #12

The film wasn't perfect but these complaints are not very compelling to me. The cheat of "what you thought you saw wasn't what you saw" is kind of a lazy cheat but it is very common in detective and heist films. The point about whether the sister who journaled everything wouldn't have journaled about creating the software is a good one and the conceit of the twin being able to fool the friends is also a good point bu…

> The point about whether the sister who journaled everything wouldn't have journaled about creating the software

Where does it say she didn't journal about the software? And - imagining said entry - even if you could prove the date the entry was written, it's still just hearsay against the testimony of 4 others.

Post reply on HN