When word got out in the middle of the pandemic that Daniel Craig and Rian Johnson were coming to Greece to film the sequel to the successful Knives, there was a bit of a loss. Rumors, unsubstantiated and unfounded, ran rampant: yesterday we were in Porto Heli, today they are filming in Spetses, tomorrow maybe in Hydra… With a budget of just over $40 million, it was the most expensive film production ever opened. in our country, while its stellar line-up certainly attracted attention: Daniel Craig, Edward Norton, Kate Hudson, Ethan Hawke, Janelle Monáe, Dave Bautista etc.

Now we see them all assembled in the complete Bow of Glass: The Mystery of Retrieving Knives, which was released in a matter of days on Netflix. The popular platform has reportedly bought the rights to two sequels to the original film for a whopping $450 million and is apparently aiming to break even, isn’t it? The Glass Bow racked up 82.1 million watch hours between December 19 and 25, placing it among the ten most watched movies ever shown on Netflix. How this now translates financially into a platform that, let’s remember, is still a mystery, more complex than what protagonist Benoît Blanc decides.

Because here, under the blinding Saronic sun, we have a mystery again. At a special invitation in the form of a board puzzle, a group of old friends arrive on the private island of Miles Bronn (Edward Norton), a billionaire tycoon who looks like a caricature of Elon Musk. With them, the (almost) uninvited Benoit Blanc, the demonic detective we know from the first installment, is actually just in time, as the relaxing weekend also includes a police game created especially for the occasion by the owner.

Blank, of course, solves this “mystery” in a matter of seconds, now focusing on the real crime that got everyone to Bron’s Mediterranean mansion. From there the classic “who did this?” the plot is entertaining, but somewhat drawn out both in duration (the film reaches 140 minutes in total) and in terms of the convenience of the script. On the other hand, it is certainly useful to break up the narrative with scenes from the past that gradually remove the leaves of the title’s “glass onion” to get to the heart of the mystery.

Meanwhile, however, the satire mentioned above is more interesting. A satire about a half-educated jester who, by the way, rented the Mona Lisa (!) from the Louvre, which was closed due to the pandemic, as well as about a liberal politician (Katherine Hahn), a moral scientist (Leslie Odom), a “built” weapons enthusiast (Dave Bautista) and naive fashionista (Kate Hudson): they are all dependent on Bron’s wealth in one way or another.

The latter’s dynamic ex-employee (Janelle Monáe) will take on the challenge, of course with the decisive help of an intelligent detective played in delightfully weird style by Daniel Craig. Somewhere, unfortunately, there is an exaggeration – almost arrogance – of the finale, which looks more like a cheap trick than the bold climax that the creators may have planned.