I haven't seen a single film within the Knives Out franchise, and I don't even know why. It's a genre that I tend to enjoy and the films from what I have seen have done relatively well with critics. I'm not a massive fan of Rian Johnson as a director, but I don't think that has been a main reason as to why I have avoided the films. And what finally led to me checking one of them out was discovering that each film is actually a standalone title. You don't need to watch each of the films in any particular order. They're just there. So while they're a franchise, they're not linear and don't require watching the previous. This actually made Wake Up Dead Man even more appealing. I didn't want to invest time into all of them, and perhaps I might after watching this. Now, I do love a murder mystery film or show, and I do think it's a genre that has died off a bit. Perhaps not quite managing to be as engaging as audiences would hope, and not enough for studios to throw cash at given the lack of big gains to be made from them.
This made me curious about the Knives Out franchise though. One that has managed to stand the test of modern time. Where it has seen several titles at this point. Clearly it must've been doing something right! So, I decided to start with Wake Up Dead Man, the film which seemed like it would interest me the most. It also happens to be the latest film within the Knives Out franchise, released in the tough year of 2025 where cinemas were dying harder than ever before despite the post-pandemic freedom we all face. But I do think there's a special simplicity to these types of stories, detective murder mysteries in which we are pulled along for the ride and attempting to figure out who did it alongside and often maybe even before the characters. I went into the film having seen no trailers, read no reviews, and sceptical of Rian Johnson's directing after his... well... butchering of Star Wars.
Well, Johnson completely surprised me here. From even the first twenty minutes I could see the skill the director has. The visual creativity to really pull out something beautiful that connects thematically and almost in a fantasy manner. I suspect much of the Star Wars handling was also a studio thing, as well, leading to generally less creative potential. But I have to say, I wasn't aware that Johnson was capable of creating such beautiful scenes. A lot of it is down to the cinematographer and lighting department as well, but you could see that there is a vision in it. I really liked the clean but still quite textured grainy look of the images as well. The lighting is done beautifully, especially with how some shots have quite a strong natural light glow to them, which connects quite beautifully to the concept of religion and higher powers (also glow that comes from shooting with 35mm film stock and the halation it creates). Something the narrative displays a lot of quite early on as it establishes some characters and setting. This visual beauty continued to impress me throughout.
I really enjoyed the narration that the film held as well, the way it would rely on visuals to display characters and their actions, but the narration would provide deeper context into their lives and personalities. Some shots would display visual storytelling that would show one character is an alcoholic, another would show the ways in which a person is more collected or perhaps the opposite. The narration still providing a way to show the human within that made them feel more real rather than two-dimensional. For a film like this, not only does it glance over the endless attempts at exposition that would take up more screen time, it also keeps the film moving forward, with a person telling us directly snippets of information. This, for a murder mystery type of film, really broadens the connection it has with the viewer.
The way the story unfolds was really engaging, the progression into madness as it connects to religion. The characters that are established and how it's believed that they deserved to be punished. I don't want to say a lot regarding it all given these types of films are very easy to spoil, but the supernatural undertones which appear which connect to religion really gave this the extra leg it needed. And once it really gets moving, the insanity picks up fast. I'm genuinely surprised at how good of a film this was.
