Rian Johnson's "Glass Onion" makes a marvelous sequel to 2019's "Knives Out," with a knockout cast (special kudos to Daniel Craig, Janelle Monae, and Edward Norton), and a loving tribute to the Agatha Christie tradition, as well as to the wickedly clever 1973 "The Last of Sheila." While the mystery itself is easier than one might think to solve (I managed to figure out the killers in both this and Knives Out long before the climax), that's not really the point. Instead, what you get is a very funny satire of the whodunit form, accentuated by some well-deserved swipe at megalomaniac tech sector geniuses and social media influencers - in other words, Agatha Christie or Ellery Queen for this century.

Billionaire tech genius Miles Bron (Norton) invites five of his longstanding pack of "disrupters" and their companions - scientist Lionel (Leslie Odom, Jr.), dimwitted former glam model and now fashion designer Birdie Jay (Kate Hudson) and her devoted assistant Peg (Jessica Henwick), seeming environmentalist governor Claire (Kathryn Hahn), uber macho, misogynistic influencer Duke (Dave Bautista) and his girlfriend Whiskey (Madelyn Cline), and former partner Andi (Monae) - to his elaborately designed island complex in Greece to take part in a murder-mystery game, with him as the victim. Also invited along is private detective Benoit Blanc (Craig). While Miles' game doesn't go as initially planned, a real murder actually occurs, and nothing seems to go as it appears, and Blanc takes it upon himself to solve the real mystery at hand.

Johnson ably demonstrated his love and attention to the whodunit format in Knives Out, and this time he doubles down on the format, while effectively taking the opportunity to take effective shots at the current "hits and appearance are everything substance is nothing" tone of current popular culture. Indeed, what makes the latter so effective is that Johnson uses that as a means of clueing in the audience that not everything may be as the audience would want to make it - the whole metaphor of the Glass Onion itself (explained by Blanc early in the story) is a wonderful use of the concept of doubling back on one's own story. In addition to the Agatha Christie whodunit formula, Johnson effectively borrows from the highly underrated 1973 whodunit film The Last of Sheila, not only borrowing key elements from the story, but also featuring in a cameo one of the two Last of Sheila scriptwriters, legendary Broadway composer Stephen Sondheim (the other scriptwriter for the 1973 film was Anthony Perkins). Johnson's script is nicely tuned, eerily capturing the combination of clickbait- and corporate buzzword-speak in the speech of everyone except Craig and Monae, and using that language as an effective offset to the more logical language that takes over when actual danger arises.

The performances here are also spot-on. Craig again brings a wonderful insouciance to Blanc, while Monae is incredibly impressive (and may well have been shafted out of a Best Supporting Actress nomination). Norton is a hoot as a Steve Jobs-Elon Musk-Jeff Bezos amalgam, and the remaining players are all strong in their roles. And in his direction, Johnson has a really nice eye for framing key moments of the action, playing like a master magician so as to keep everything in plain sight, while relentlessly misdirecting the audience. This is a directorial skill rarely seen in mysteries, and which would probably impress even Agatha Christie herself.

In sum, Glass Onion is definitely a treat to watch, and a mystery that may be easier to solve than you think - or is it?