Knives Outis never, ever dull and offers the kind of classy entertainment we could use more of on the big screen. And I have a feeling we'll see more of Daniel Craig's colorful character down the road.

| Dec 9, 2019

"Knives Out," in the end, believes earnestly in the whodunit, it just wants to turn it inside out. To say more about that would spoil the fun. But keep an eye here, and elsewhere, on de Armas.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Dec 3, 2019

At two hours and 10 minutes the film's on the long side, but it's an entertaining enough pastiche and we haven't had enough of these in the cinema lately. The production design of the cluttered house is fabulous.

| Dec 3, 2019

As a smartly crafted and shaped piece of entertainment, Johnson's movie comes off especially good in a moment when such mid-budget, story-driven movies have all but disappeared; it's a throwback that's also an outlier.

| Dec 3, 2019

The film has a sense of glee that's infectious. It's pleasurable and occasionally silly but it's consistently fun.

| Dec 3, 2019

What makes it such a crowd-pleaser is that [Rian] Johnson also expresses a reassuring optimism that human decency will prevail, and that justice will favor the hard-working and good-hearted over the pernicious and self-serving.

| Dec 2, 2019

Writer-director Rian Johnson brilliantly keeps the game afoot. Edited with dash and panache, his ingenious plotting keeps you pretty much hooked throughout a playful 130 minutes.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Dec 2, 2019

Knives Out deserves to be explored as a world of it own, as Johnson balances moral conscience and black humor expertly within the constraints of the murder-mystery genre.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Dec 2, 2019

[Rian] Johnson throws in every theatrical prop he can think of and ensures that the film is both as amusing as send-ups like Clue or Murder By Death and as robust as any Christie classic.

| Dec 2, 2019

Built upon a wittily verbose script that delivers more laugh-out-loud lines than most of the year's alleged comedies, Knives Out retains a beating human heart into which daggers are regularly plunged.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Dec 1, 2019

It's pure pleasure.

| Nov 30, 2019

Decorating the action with brown wood and rep-theatre costumery, [Johnson] makes no concessions to safety in his vigorous hammering of the accelerator.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Nov 30, 2019

There's a great deal of lively and funny shenanigans with poisons and antidotes, and Johnson delivers a stab of cheerful cynicism.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Nov 29, 2019

An entertainment that's as smart, witty, stylish and exhilarating as any movie lover could wish for.

| Nov 28, 2019

A sharp, witty and irresistible twist on the popular whodunnit genre.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Nov 28, 2019

This cracking mystery is a lean-forward experience, as the movie lures you deeper and deeper into its intricately plotted layers. In other words - You. Will. Be. Hooked.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Nov 27, 2019

[Rian Johnson's] latest is a satirically malevolent gold mine that refuses to follow the rules of the genre its narrative exists within.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Nov 27, 2019

I suspect that Johnson, an adolescent genre enthusiast to his core, has waited since age 10 to make a movie like this. His enjoyment is contagious, even for those of us who don't think Knives Out quite hits its marks.

| Nov 27, 2019

Knives Out is a whole lot of fun, intended to keep the audience off-balance right up until the finish. It's a razor-sharp throwback from writer-director Rian Johnson.

| Nov 27, 2019

It's a murder mystery with colorful characters and a central location - but it unfolds into something more complicated and immediately relevant, creating a story that's been dazzlingly updated for a modern audience.

| Nov 27, 2019