An overlong episode of Columbo

Rating: 5/10 (20 January 2020)

I like a good murder mystery and Hollywood hasn't been making them since the 90's so I was looking forward to this based on the glowing reviews and the 8.1 rating on imdb. Unfortunately as murder mysteries go this one doesn't really have anything original to add. It's also quite boring. It started very slowly with loads of scenes of people sitting in rooms talking in long boring monologues. I love a good dialogue driven movie like The Social Network, Reservoir Dogs, A Few Good Men, Moneyball, The Lincoln Lawyer etc, but the dialogue in Knives Out is bland and full of pretentious waffle.
It finally got interesting in the last half hour, but the way the crime was solved was lazy. Daniel Craig calls the guilty party into a room and then explains exactly how the crime was committed despite the fact he hasn't really done much in the way of investigating. It's just lazy. It's meant to be clever, but I was expecting a further twist because I couldn't believe it would be this basic, but it is. Basically Daniel Craig chats to everyone for an hour or so then in classic Columbo style reveals he has all the answers and you're supposed to be blown away by how clever it all is. I wasn't. I'm giving it a 5/10 because at least it was something different coming out of Hollywood for a change. I'm fed up with reboots, superhero movies and big franchises so I'm happy that this was made. I just wish it was better.