Rian Johnson’s new addition to his Knives Out universe, Wake Up, Dead Man, asks how much clever satire, quippy comebacks and pithy exchanges can one franchise have. How long can Daniel Craig’s Foghorn Leghorn schtick sustain fans?
I loved Knives Out (2019) back when it was in theaters and find it very enjoyable on rewatch, and I seem to be in the minority of viewers who found Glass Onion (2022) entertaining enough for a sequel. I was genuinely interested in Wake Up, Dead Man because Craig does seem to be having a blast with his Benoit Blanc detective persona, and I like most of the younger cast. But it left me a little cold, maybe because of the religious angle.
After being assigned to a different church as a response to punching a fellow priest during an argument, Father Jud Duplenticy (Josh O’Connor) discovers his new superior, Monsignor Jefferson Wicks (Josh Brolin), is a charlatan and manipulator whose intentions with his congregation aren’t pure. Jud and Wicks openly disagree and confront each other until Jud is suddenly the no. 1 suspect when Wicks is found dead next to the church altar, and Detective Blanc is recruited to see if the blood on Jud’s fingers really does mean he’s the murderer, or actually someone less transparent in the deceased priest’s life.
Glenn Close, Thomas Haden Church, Andrew Scott, Jeremy Renner, Kerry Washington, Daryl McCormack and Cailee Spaeny play Wicks’ most loyal parishioners, while Mila Kunis co-stars as the local police chief working with Blanc to solve Wicks’ murder. As we know by now, this whodunit series isn’t really about the twists and turns of the mystery, but more social commentary and mocking status quo. This worked fine for the previous movies, but the gimmick, as well as the comedy, are starting to wear a little thin.
The 140-minute runtime of Wake Up, Dead Man definitely didn’t feel warranted this time and the third act in particular drags once the clues start finally coming together. The huge, all-star ensemble of characters also ends up underutilized since the whole plot revolves around Jud and Wicks. But my biggest problem — and I admit this is mostly a personal thing as someone who grew up Catholic — is that I can always tell when someone who doesn’t have history with Catholicism is portraying it on film.
Johnson was supposedly raised Christian, but it must have been Protestant or some other denomination because no one in this movie actually behaves like a practicing Catholic would. Although it’s obviously for comedic purposes, I found myself rolling my eyes at all the priests casually using foul language and there were a couple of moments that veered a bit too close to religious centrism.
O’Connor, Spaeny and McCormack are very talented and have long careers ahead of them, and O’Connor in particularly completely carries Wake Up, Dead Man, even more so than Craig, I would argue. Maybe I just wasn’t in the right mood or maybe I just took the themes too personally, but this was a swing-and-miss for me.
