Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery (2022)

The inferior sequel to Knives Out tries to repeat the same tricks, cutting back and forwards in time to interject scenes that upend what we thought we knew of the developing mystery (this time set on a tech billionaire's hi-tech Greek island where guests have gathered for a murder mystery weekend) but like that murder mystery weekend, which Daniel Craig's nondescript Benoit Blanc abruptly ends by prematurely solving it, so too is the movie's main mystery - the murder of one of the guests - abruptly over, solved within an hour of starting, and all the jumping back and forth between past and present, the crowdpleasing techpreneur teardown, and jarring celebrity cameos can't disguise how brief and empty it is.

★★☆☆☆

Fool's Gold (2008)

This much-maligned sun-drenched adventure from Warner Bros. has goofball divorcees, played by bronzed beach babes Kate Hudson and Matthew McConaughey, reuniting in a race to claim a sunken treasure in the Caribbean, and it is so harmless a romantic romp, like an especially cartoony Romancing the Stone, it is hard to see why so many people regard it with such disdain, even if Donald Sutherland's appearance as a rich yacht owner feels unnecessary and his character's relationship with his daughter is irritating, even if McConaughey and Hudson are not the most likeable leads, and even if you are never going to want to watch it again, ever.

★★★☆☆

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