《利刃出鞘2》：“玻璃洋葱”悬疑海滩命案

Eccentric billionaire Miles Bron (Norton) invites his favourite friends and “disruptors” to a private Greek island for a murder-mystery party. When a guest actually dies, it’s up to detective Benoit Blanc (Craig) to once again solve the case.

古怪的亿万富翁 Miles Bron(诺顿饰)邀请他最喜欢的朋友和“破坏者们”到希腊的一个私人岛屿参加一场神秘谋杀派对。当一个客人真的死了，侦探Benoit Blanc(克雷格饰)将再次破案。

Whether you’re a detective or a director, taking on a new case is always tricky.  The last time Rian Johnson made a sequel (2017’s The Last Jedi), he nearly broke the internet, or at least the corner of it that likes to argue about Star Wars;  the last time gentleman detective Benoit Blanc solved a case (in 2019’s Knives Out, Johnson’s part love letter to, part subversion of the Agatha Christie murder-mystery genre), he nearly fell into a metaphorical doughnut-hole.

无论你是侦探还是导演，接手一个新案子总是很棘手的。上次 Rian Johnson（莱恩·约翰逊）拍续集(2017年的《最后的绝地武士》)时，他差点把互联网搅得沸沸扬扬，至少是那些喜欢讨论《星球大战》的人。绅士侦探伯努瓦·布兰科上一次破案时(在2019年的《出鞘之刀》中，约翰逊一半是给阿加莎·克里斯蒂写的情书，一半是对阿加莎·克里斯蒂谋杀悬疑小说风格的颠覆)，他几乎掉进了一个隐喻式的甜甜圈洞。

This follow-up to Knives Out — the first of a massive, multi-million-dollar deal made with Netflix — establishes the Christie-esque precedent that Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) is the only recurring element in the series;  a new case and a new cast of characters will appear each time.  So as much as this is technically a sequel, it feels more like the latest entry in an ongoing anthology, a singular story that can be enjoyed purely on its own terms.

这部《利刃出鞘》的续集是与Netflix达成的第一笔巨额、数百万美元的交易，它开创了克里斯蒂式的先例:伯努瓦·布兰科(丹尼尔·克雷格饰)是该系列中唯一一个反复出现的元素;每次都会出现一个新的案例和一组新的角色。因此，尽管从技术上讲，这是一部续集，但它更像是一部正在进行的选集的最新一集，一个可以完全按照自己的方式来欣赏的独特故事。

That’s not to say there aren’t commonalities with the original, and in fact this is very much more of the same: a delightful retread of everything that made Knives Out so deeply satisfying. There is, once again, a mysterious crime that self-awarely references the genre as it goes (the first film was set in a crime novelist’s home, mirroring the author’s fictional crimes; this is set during a weekend-long murder-mystery game). There are bodies and blood-splatters. There are twists and misdirects, rewarding repeat watchers. There is a final summation and big reveal, in the equivalent of a drawing room.

这并不是说它与第一部没有共同点，事实上，它与第一部有很大的相似之处:这是一部令人愉快的改编之作，改编自那些令《利刃出鞘》这样令人满意的作品。影片中又一次出现了一个神秘的犯罪事件，它自觉地参照了该类型电影的发展(第一部电影的背景设置在一个犯罪小说家的家中，反映了作者虚构的罪行；这是一个周末的谋杀谜题游戏。到处都是尸体和血迹。其中不乏曲折和反转，会让反复观看者大呼过瘾。在相当于客厅的地方，有一个最后的总结和大揭露。

But it all looks and feels markedly different, and not just in the budget flexes Netflix can now afford. Where Knives Out was a claustrophobic, autumnal, New England kind of whodunnit— evoking the gothic suspense of Sleuth or the arch wit of Clue — Johnson opts for a completely different setting here: a summer holiday gone wrong, his take on Christie’s A Caribbean Mystery, or more accurately, Stephen Sondheim’s The Last Of Sheila (and Sondheim in fact earns a brief, brilliant posthumous nod in this film).

但这一切看起来和感觉上都有明显的不同，而且不仅仅是Netflix现在能承受的预算弹性。《利刃出鞘》是一部幽闭的、秋日的、新英格兰式的悬疑小说——让人想起《足迹》的哥特式悬疑或《妙探寻凶》的机智——约翰逊在这里选择了一个完全不同的背景:一个错乱的暑假故事，是他对阿加莎·克里斯蒂《加勒比海之谜》的全新演绎，或者更准确地说，是斯蒂芬·桑德海姆的《勾魂游戏》(实际上，在这部电影中也对桑德海姆进行了简短而巧妙的追思)。

This time, too, Blanc is no longer “merely a passive obsuh-vuh of the truth” — he’s an active player in the case.  A character previously introduced in an out-of-focus background shot now comes to the foreground: we learn a little about his personal life, his insecurities, his proclivity for taking long baths while wearing a fez, and his extensive collection of linen neckerchiefs.

这一次，布兰科也不再是“一个被动的真相的无神论者”——他在案件中是一个积极的参与者。一个以前在模糊的背景镜头中出现的人物现在来到了前台:我们了解到一些他的私生活，他的不安全感，他喜欢戴着毡帽长时间洗澡的癖好，以及他大量收藏的亚麻围巾。

As such, he feels more rounded as a character, both narratively — Johnson is keen to emphasise his empathy and wisdom — and comedically, blessed with more delicious “Southern hokum”, as Blanc himself self-deprecatingly puts it. (Those who enjoyed the “doughnut holes” of the first film will take particular succour in the way Craig repeatedly wraps his lips around the word “buttress”.) Spending time in Blanc’s company remains a singular pleasure, and if this is to be an ongoing affair, as it appears to be, there’s every chance Blanc will be as defining a role for Craig as Bond.

因此，他觉得自己作为一个角色更加全面，无论是在叙事上(约翰逊热衷于强调他的同理心和智慧)，还是在喜剧上(布兰科自己自嘲地说，他拥有更多美味的“南方废话”)。(那些喜欢第一部“甜甜圈洞”梗的人，这次会从克雷格反复把“buttress”这个词挂在嘴边的方式中得到特别的抚慰。)和布兰科在一起仍然是一种独一无二的乐趣，如果这是一段持续的恋情，就像它看起来的那样，布兰科也会想詹姆斯邦德007一样，成为克雷格的决定性角色。

He is surrounded, naturally, by another superb collection of potential murderers/murder victims, Johnson once again showing his knack for drawing from an embarrassment of acting riches. (If anything, it’s too good a cast, with superlative talents like Kathryn Hahn given less to do.) You could pick a different favourite each time you think about it, but particular praise must go to Janelle Monáe, showing versatile comedy chops for the first time in a complex role that requires both drunken pratfalls and if-looks-could-kill stares; and Kate Hudson, having a blast as an endlessly cancelled fashionista with a penchant for tweeting racial slurs.

很自然而然地，他的周围又聚集了一批潜在的杀人犯/谋杀案受害者，约翰逊再次展示了他从假装炫富的尴尬中获得灵感的才能。(要说有什么区别的话，那就是这个演员阵容太好了，凯瑟琳·哈恩(Kathryn Hahn)这样的顶级天才的戏份太少了。)你可以每次都选一个你最喜欢的，但特别要表扬的是加纳儿梦奈(Janelle Monáe)，她第一次展现了多才多艺的喜剧才能，在一个复杂的角色中，既需要醉酒出丑，也需要眼神致命的凝视;还有凯特·哈德森(Kate Hudson)，她扮演一个经常被取消演出的时尚达人，喜欢在推特上发表种族歧视言论。

They are all extremely funny, and with that change of scenery from the first film comes a change of tone, lightening as the weather brightens. The first film seemed like a mystery with some comic peppering; this feels more like a comedy first, mystery second. Sometimes there’s a slight sense that the wackiness could have been reined in a little — there are, by our count, nine celebrity cameos drizzled throughout, plus cheeky references to celebrity product endorsements, which begins to feel a little overindulgent.

它们都非常有趣，随着第一部场景的变化，基调也发生了变化，随着天气变亮而变亮。第一部电影看起来像一个带有喜剧色彩的悬疑片;这感觉更像是一部喜剧，其次才是神秘。有时会有一种轻微的感觉，古怪的行为可以被控制一点——根据我们的统计，有九个名人的客串贯穿整个，加上厚颜无耻的名人产品代言，这开始感觉有点过分放纵。

If the denouement doesn’t quite have the same sting of surprise as the first film’s, you will still leave feeling supremely satisfied. It is, fundamentally, a proper crowd-pleaser, and best experienced with one. To misquote Blanc: it just makes damn sense. On to the next case!

即使结局不像第一部那样令人惊讶，你也会感到非常满意。从根本上说，它是一款适当的取悦大众的片子，而且是技巧最娴熟的那种。错误地引用布兰科的话:这是有道理的。下个案子见!