Cumberland Dispatch

Sometimes when you go to the movies, it’s more about sitting in a recliner, and smelling the popcorn, and watching a story play out on a 50 by 30 foot screen, than it is the movie. “Wake up Dead Man,” a Knives Out sequel, was like that for me.

It starts out as a promising mystery. A young, down-to-earth, young Catholic priest gets into trouble after some fisticuffs and is sent away to a troubled parish.

At the parish, the bombastic, egomaniacal   priest in charge, played by Josh Brolin, is an unmovable cult-like figure who is going to be faced with the unstoppable force of the young priest, played by Josh O’Connor.. One of them does not survive.

But like Knives Out before, the mystery isn’t afoot unless there’s an ensemble cast full of A-list actors. But this isn’t Knives Out. The ensemble are the culty followers of the egomaniac elder priest. Those include The plot thickens from there.

The script and plot are heavy on theology and dogma though, as well as veiled and biting political satire and insite, that borders on the cynical. This really makes the movie bog down and become slow.

Perhaps the writer and director realized this because there are two consecutive dumps of information in the story that are used to help explain away the loose-ends of the mystery.

Having watched way too many well-crafted Brit Box English mysteries, I can’t really recommend this film as one to see in the theater or at home.

In the end, there is a solving of the murder, but it seems mostly a contrivance to help the story not bypass being two and half hours long.

That said, going to the big screen in 2026 looks like it’s going to be worth it, judging from the coming attractions. At least two upcoming crime dramas, one set in the gritty urban 1970’s look compelling, one being “Crime 101”. A feel-good dystopian space movie called the “Hail Mary Project” is scheduled, as is a PG-animated “Animal Farm” frolic based on George Orwell’s mini-masterpiece. On the lighter side there also “Anaconda” coming, which looks like a tongue-in-cheek horror romp, not unlike “Lake Placid” from decades ago that featured the timeless personality of Betty White.

So although “Knives Out: Wake up dead man” may sound like it’s an epitaph to the big screen industry experience, there’s more on the agenda from Hollywood that will likely have you feel Iike there’s still a little something special about a night out at the movies.

At a C-, I recommend passing on this movie, which runs at Country Club Cinemas in LaVale until Wednesday. Betty White and “Lake Placid” on the other hand might just be due for a 2025 holiday home-screen revival!