Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery
Netflix
It is once again time for another Knives Out murder mystery, easily Netflix’s best ongoing series of original films. The collaboration of director Rian Johnson and star Daniel Craig has produced two comedic, intelligent tales before this, and it may be no great surprise that they’ve done it yet again.
Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery (can they make these titles less convoluted?) has arrived on Netflix as of today, Friday, December 12, and viewers are making their way through all two-and-a-half-hours of the feature. Scores are coming in, and Rotten Tomatoes has pretty secure figures for both critics and audiences. Here they are, and how they stack up against the other Knives Out movies:
- Knives Out – 97% critic, 92% audience
- Glass Onion – 91% critic, 92% audience
- Wake Up Dead Man – 92% critic, 94% audience
So, we’re exactly in the same range here. For critics, between the first and second movies. For audiences, it’s actually better than the first two, though there are fewer reviews in for Wake Up Dead Man, and we’ll have to see if that figure goes up or down from here. Here is the synopsis for Wake Up Dead Man this time around:
“Detective Benoit Blanc sifts through a series of suspects when a monsignor turns up dead.”
Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery
Netflix
Really not giving much away there. The cast this time around, grabbing A-listers and up-and-comers, includes: Daniel Craig, Josh O’Connor, Glenn Close, Josh Brolin, Mila Kunis, Jeremy Renner, Kerry Washington, Andrew Scott, Jeffrey Wright, Thomas Hayden Church, Daryl McCormack and Cailee Spaeny. It’s stacked, in other words.
Despite how well-liked this series of films is, and how accessible to a wide audience, I have to admit that I’m at least a little surprised that none of them, not even the original, are on Netflix’s top 10 movies of all time list, recently dominated, of course, by KPop Demon Hunters. Almost every movie on that list is lower-scored than Knives Out, and I would argue has less cultural impact (except…KPop Demon Hunters, on both counts). We have Red Notice, Back in Action and The Gray Man there and not Knives Out? There’s no accounting for taste, I suppose.
There is little doubt that Wake Up Dead Man will top the charts on Netflix by tomorrow and will likely stay there as we head into the holiday. It’s just relieving to know that once again, Johnson and Craig have done it, and as they’ve said in the past, we will likely keep seeing these movies made forever, with both on board for the ride.
Follow me on Twitter, YouTube, Bluesky and Instagram.
Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy.