This peppy whodunnit starts off so strong, viewers will scarcely believe the momentum will last, but it mostly does. Writer/director Rian Johnson’s Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery (B+) brings back Daniel Craig as the series’ peculiar detective protagonist and a new ensemble, all with cryptic connections to Ed Norton’s business giant character. These suspects including Kate Hudson, Janelle Monáe, Leslie Odom Jr., Dave Bautista and Kathryn Hahn congregate in a semitransparent mansion on a private island for a dangerous game. So soon after the similarly themed The Menu, this film loses a little bit of its punch, but it’s largely a frothy winner with droll humor and an impressive script. There’s also a moment when the plot wraps back over itself, and it slows down the pace just slightly. Thankfully Johnson peppers the proceedings with some potent subtext about untoward allegiances people make to maintain power, and it makes the cinematic meal more of a banquet. Monáe and Hudson get some of the juiciest roles and make quite an impact, plus there are some other mysterious cameos. There’s a running joke about the detective not liking the board game Clue; but for audiences, it’s fun to second-guess every person, prop and room on display. Peel back the layers and enjoy this holiday hit.

This plucky, picturesque new family movie is both elementary and dear. Millie Bobby Brown is superb in the titular role of teen detective little sister of Sherlock in Harry Bradbeer’s Enola Holmes (B), and much of the Victorian Era young adult adaptation story rises to the level of its protagonist’s wit and intelligence. Bradbeer fills the screen with whimsy and fun visual cues, even as some of the plot of this opulent adventure gets occasionally sluggish. As Enola’s brother and mother, respectively, Henry Cavill and Helena Bonham Carter come off a bit dull, and villains are cartoonish; but Brown brims with charm and enthusiasm, stealing all scenes. Under the magnifying glass, the film delivers a satisfying yarn and provides a potent mystery in its own right, with tinges of feminism and clever wordplay buoying its every move. This is a good first installment of what will undoubtedly be a fun series of films,

If writer/director Rian Johnson prepared your holiday turkey, it would be overstuffed, but the cinematic chef gleefully loads up his wily whodunit Knives Out (B) with impeccable ingredients: a cavalcade of sassy stars, a labyrinthine manor, cunning clues, red herrings, mousetraps and sinewy twists. A spry Daniel Craig (with a vexing Foghorn Leghorn accent) and relatable Cuban actress Ana de Armas are the closest things to protagonists in the sprawling ensemble as detective and central caretaker, respectively. This duo provides sympathetic touchstones in a universe of rather despicable suspects. Everyone in the story has a connection to a mystery novelist patriarch played by Christopher Plummer, and they all display sharp edges in oddball humor and acerbic dialogue. Jamie Lee Curtis, Don Johnson, Toni Collette, Chris Evans and Michael Shannon are among the prominent players. Although it would have been charitable to accomplish the story with fewer partisan jabs, less projectile vomiting and more character interactions, it is efficient in its intent and durable for its duration. It’s a rare entry into a fun genre by a filmmaker who may have met his match.

Movie remakes can be a bit like theatrical revivals when there’s a corker of a story to tell with a thrilling new ensemble, but Kenneth Branagh’s 2017 version of Murder on the Orient Express (B-) with the actor/director in the top-billed role as the intrepid Detective Poirot doesn’t add or enrich the story enough in any remarkable ways to make it essential. That said, this fourth adaptation of the Agatha Christie work is a handsomely mounted whodunit with some nice bits from the likes of Daisy Ripley, Michelle Pfeiffer, Johnny Depp and others. On the aggregate, however, none of the sprawling cast members gets anything close to the scenery-chewing delights that Branagh does. As an actor, he’s the film’s liveliest and most eccentric surprise, as he searches for the clues of a world out of its normal order. As director, he makes ample use of digital technologies to glide in, out of and around the titular locomotive, including some fun overhead shots of train car cabins. Ultimately the plot loses steam, and the novelty wears off. Although it’s heartening to have a new-Hollywood entry into the mystery genre, the best part of Branagh’s slick schtick is his old-fashioned performance.