Would prefer a knife in me

Rating: 6/10 (1 January 2020)

GENERAL REVIEW
Going in, I was expecting an energetic Edgar Wright feel, and complex Sherlock Holmes mystery in which the audience tries to solve it at the same time. What I got was a cookie cutter 'mystery' that was different from others in its genre only in its use of bright colours, rather than any sort of trope and convention subversion or parody.
SPOILER TIME
In regards to acting, Christopher Plummer, Ana de Armas and Chris Evans gave great performances. 0 complaints for the main 3, I thoroughly enjoyed Harlan and Marta's scenes. There are more than 3 members of the cast, of which I have complaints; Jamie Lee Curtis and Micheal Shannon among others gave performances that seemed to change personalities every few lines, probably due to Rian Johnson's directing. Don Johnson was good, LaKeith Stanfield was not, others were mediocre or just less.
Special Daniel Craig section. Daniel Daniel Daniel. What was that. The screenplay reads "Blanc ... speaks in the gentlest southern lilt you have ever heard in your life." That is not what I was forced to listen to. The accent was very distracting and I could only hope for a case of Stockholm syndrome that never came. His character was meant to act as an absurdist archetype satire of the noir detective, but instead he came across as an annoying detective who did not diverge from the archetypal role. If that didn't bother you then it would have been a good performance
As mentioned I was expecting more Edgar Wright-esque editing and cinematography that the trailer promised me.
Overall, the writing is very basic, being a typical murder mystery. I am unsure if you can even call it a murder mystery when you find out the truth a quarter through. Throughout the story, there were many setups with minimal or no payoff, e.g. shoe blood, where is Marta from (Harlan should have commented to Ransom during their fight where she is from). There were also too many inconsistencies, like how the stairs did not actually make a noise every time, some people went up with a noise and down without because Rian Johnson forgot.
For the final reveal; Marta must be especially talented to feel "tincture and viscosity" of vials, a quality you might be able to feel when you are drawing a syringe, but she had made the choice already which solution to use, maybe density or weight would be acceptable but the given explanation of her being such a good person that her vail choice was correct is pretty dumb. Also, the shots for Fran's last words were different, where she said "you did this" in the scene and first flashback, but "Hugh did this" in the last. These 2 issues detract from the fun of watching murder mysteries, in which an audience should be able to find the killer if they have been paying attention, instead the script pretended like you should have known these facts.
The suspect game instead was played by cast knowledge. By looking at the cast you can see it's either Jamie Lee Curtis, Micheal Shannon or Chris Evans, personally I guessed Micheal Shannon due to his typecasting, but when I realised that all 3 of Harlan's children where the same character, with different jobs, it was then obviously the built up character named Ransom. Ransom. His name is Ransom.
This leads me to one of my main critiques: Unnecessary characters. Despite all 3 of Harlan's children being the same, the "nazi kid" served 1 purpose that could have easily been delivered by another character, the granddaughter, Katherine Langford served a whopping 2 purposes that all together could have been dropped and exchanged. There were 2 cops and Blanc for some reason, of which the comedic policeman was not funny.
Lastly, too many convenient devices like the stairs that made a noise 'every time', Marta vomiting when she lies, the dogs choosing to like and dislike people, or the various murder mystery cliches that excuse themselves through being self aware (secret doors and prop knives)