Two years after toxic Star Wars fans, long-liberated from their mothers’ basements and set loose in the greater world of pop culture without any foreknowledge or education on how that world actually works, went to town on Rian Johnson, director of such hits as Brick and also one of the most well-regarded humans making movies today, comes his latest movie, Knives Out, which has nothing to do with Star Wars but which that franchise’s partisans will no doubt berate anyways because they’re children.
Knives Out isn’t a rebuke to that toxic fandom per se, though it is fun watching Johnson’s longtime collaborator Noah Segan play a geeky can’t-help-himself murder mystery fan; it’s much more clearly structured as a “fuck you” to America’s upper class, habituated to devour itself and any other suckers caught in the trajectory of its gaping maw, whenever money is on the line. It’s also an absurd amount of fun, kinetic screwball energy projected on the screen and given free reign to delight and dazzle its audience.
You can read my full thoughts on the movie over at Mic.com.